On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 04:16:49 -0800, Stephen Birch wrote:
> Paul van der Vlis([EMAIL PROTECTED])@2005-01-04 14:40: >> Hello, >> >> One of the biggest disadvantages of Debian for me is the long time it >> takes for a new stable version. > > I guess one man's meat is another man's poison. > > Since I administer a large number of distant computers I view the long > time between stable releases as a feature not a bug. > >> What about saying something like: the next stable release comes in the >> beginning of 2006? > > Once a year works for me, but any more frequent would be a pain in the > neck. Frankly a release every 18 months seems about right. > >> I can understand something like "Debian releases when it's ready", but >> many people have to work together. Maybe it's better to say: "a package >> releases when it's ready, but the deadline for the next Debian release >> is a fixed date". > > Also the concept of "releases when it's ready" seems to be a little > contrived. When *what* is ready exactly? The current system of defining a > release seems to involve identifying a number is arbitrarily > characteristics that will define the new version. The release occurs when > they are complete and the RC bug list is low. > > Perhaps a date based release mechanism could be built using a new > distribution, call it prestable. > > Packages qualify to be enter prestable after residing in testing for ten > days and having NO RC BUGS. The idea is to keep prestable in a highly > stable state at all times, a rolling stable if you will. > > So a package follows the following path: > > unstable --> testing --> prestable --(approx. 12 months)--> stable > > People running servers (like myself) will stick with stable. Those wanting > a reasonably stable system but want the latest features run prestable. > Those wanting the very latest but don't care about RC bugs run testing. > Developers normally run unstable. > > In some ways prestable would resemble the current stable when the release > manager has begun freezing it. > > Of course one would not want prestable to be released with critical > components missing. To prevent such a thing a number of packages are > identified as release essential (RE). Every RE package has to have > migrated from testing to prestable for the annual release to take place
