Re: Debian's branches and release model
Peter Hoist wrote:
> I am enjoying Debian's testing branch as a reasonably stable and up-to-date
> 'rolling' release
That's not what it is.
> , and I have to say it satisfies all my desires, almost.
> So the question is, why not cut a release branch every two years, and at
> the same time keep the unstable/testing alive? Is it because debian
> developers think it's too much work to reconcile the differences later, so
> they prefer freezing?
The thing is this: testing is not a rolling release. It is not a
release. It is a process which will result in a release.
Testing is the pile of packages that managed to stay 10 days in unstable
without a new major bug, without making the system [more] uninstallable,
and didn't fail to build for any release architecture.
Eventually, work is done to make testing into a release. That process is
a set of freezes over several months, which allows developers to see what
needs to be fixed immediately. The final freeze produces a stable release.
>From the wiki page:
Compared to stable and unstable, next-stable testing has the
worst security update speed. Don't prefer testing if security is
a concern.
Basically, you're getting lucky. You should not depend on it.
-dsr-
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