Re: Testing and honesty
Thanks for your response. See Below.
On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 03:12:04PM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote:
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> Art Edwards wrote:
> > Unless such core pieces as the debugging tool (ddd) and the data
> display tool
> > (xmgrace) are working, it is dishonest to pretend that the 64-bit version
> > is ready for testing.
> It seems your expectations for our "testing" distribution do not match
> what we have already stated clearly on our website. Please read this:
>
> http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives#s-testing
>
> "Packages are installed into the `testing' directory after they have
> undergone some degree of testing in unstable
> <http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives#s-unstable>.
>
> They must be in sync on all architectures where they have been built
> and mustn't have dependencies that make them uninstallable; they also
> have to have fewer release-critical bugs than the versions currently
> in testing. This way, we hope that `testing' is always close to being
> a release candidate."
You're absolutely right. I have learned that in a production environment
stable is were I should be. The problem is that for the AMD64 architecture,
there is no stable distribution, so that we are stuck in beta-test.
Interestingly, Fedora Core, a nominally stable distribution, also exhibits these
problems. It seems that there is no where to hide if you are using 64-bit Linux.
At this point, I'm using my 32-bit laptop for all code development and for generation of
2-d plots.
>
> In particular, no guarantees are made that the entire distribution
> will be 100% release-critical bug-free. All we can assure you is that
> packages have undergone "some degree of testing" and have fewer
> release-critical bugs than the versions currently in testing. The way
> in which the whole system is kept "honest" is by users filing bug
> reports, which in turn keeps the RC bug count in testing down to as
> few as possible given the resources available to our project.
>
> For a more detailed description of this process, see:
>
> http://www.debian.org/devel/testing
>
> Now, I understand your frustration and disappointment, but I think
> before using testing, you should have made it your business to read
> and make sure you understood what we have publicly posted about its
> readiness for use. Your rant indicates to me that you haven't, or if
> you have, you have seriously misunderstood what you read.
>
See above.
> Ben
>
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