Re: should etch be Debian 4.0 ?
On Saturday 09 July 2005 23:56, Johan Kullstam wrote:
> Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
> > On Sat, 9 Jul 2005, Nigel Jones wrote:
> > > On 08/07/05, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>
wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 11:57:25AM +1000, Drew
Parsons wrote:
> > > > > I'm already seeing documentation referring to
> > > > > "Debian 3.2 (etch)".
> > > >
> > > > Where is this? It's certainly wrong for
> > > > documentation to make assumptions about the
> > > > release version number at this point, and is
> > > > the kind of thing that makes it harder to
> > > > change later.
> > > >
> > > > And after all, isn't the point of codenames to
> > > > avoid third-parties incorrectly attaching a
> > > > version number to a not-yet-released version?
> > >
> > > http://ru.wikibooks.org/wiki/LOR-FAQ-Debian seems
> > > to be saying Etch is 3.2 Also
> > > http://www.computerbase.de/lexikon/Debian seems
> > > to be saying the same. (Got these from a google
> > > search of "etch 3.2 debian" (page 8 onwards)).
> >
> > Those references should be changed, then. It's
> > *not* ok to refer to etch as Debian 3.2, as the
> > version number for etch has not been decided yet.
>
> Why the mystery?
>
> What message is being transmitted by calling it 3.2
> versus 4.0?
>
> If there is no message, why the distinction?
>
> So what we have now is current version of debian is
> N.K with next version of debian being N.{K+1} or
> {N+1}.K according to some inscrutible random variable
> dependent upon the phase of the moon and other
> chaotic factors.
>
> The only effect as far as I can see is to cause
> confusion about the version number of the next
> release.
>
> I suspect some sort of Schödinger's cat experiment
> where the next version number is in some sort of
> half-incremented half-not-incremented superposition
> state.
>
> Does this state of affairs actually help anyone?
> ANYONE?
Erm, OK. Coming back to earth for a second, I think the
reason why some people object to a version number being
attached to etch is because of the stage of its life
that it's at, it could be argued not to be an official
release yet. (Pardon me, has it even made it to
"testing" yet?).
Refraining from giving early-stage upcoming versions of
software an official version number until it gets to a
certain stage of maturity is pretty common practice in
largescale software development. And it doesn't get a
lot more large scale than a worldwide open source
project.
Mark
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