Re: "I do consider Ubuntu to be Debian" , Ian Murdock

["Michael M." <mcubed@slashmail.org>]

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 15:28 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 05:37:00PM -0700, Michael M. wrote:
> > All that is to say that Ubuntu serves a purpose, and it's a valuable
> > one, IMO.  It's not for everybody; nor is Debian, nor any other distro
> > in particular.  Ubuntu at least provides an experience quite similar to
> > Debian while doing things that Debian stubbornly refuses to do, like
> > sticking to a schedule.  On that score, I agree 100% with Ian Murdoch --
> > Debian is missing a big opportunity.
> 
> What schedule. There was/is no promised schedule. "Dec 6th 2006" was
> never an actual release date.


The schedule that the release team puts together.  It contains target
release dates.  Debian missed its December target for Etch.  It remains
to be seen whether it will make the new target of 2 April 2007.

Call it what you want:  schedule, timeline, target, whatever.  The point
is that the Debian Project doesn't value it enough to stick to it.  I
doubt there's a large software project in existance that hasn't missed
its targets sometimes -- Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE all have had release
delays in recent memory, and then there's Windows Vista.  But Debian is
fairly unique in being so cavalier about it.

Like I said, it's the "when it's ready" attitude taken to the extreme --
to the exclusion of providing users any kind of predictablility or
expectations of timeliness -- that I don't like.


-- 
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson