Adam Di Carlo wrote: > Boot-floppies is moving along, but probably won't be in really good > shape until Jan 1. Which is not the delaying factor, really, given > the bugginess of base at this time.
This was my primary concern at the time the freeze was delayed -- So long as we do not freeze, Debian does not stabilize, and so long as we wait for stability in order to freeze, we cannot freeze. IMO, the purpose of freezing is to stabilize. I don't care much if Debian is stable before the freeze, just so long as it freezes. Yes, a short freeze is good, but better a long freeze than an interminable unfrozen unstable. There should be a *firm* date for freezing. Everyone should be given fair notice of the date, and when it comes, we should not make any excuses to delay it. If necessary, unstable packages can be backed out to older stable versions (this will be easier with the package pool, of course). Essential packages should command complete attention -- and package maintainers with release-critical bugs in frozen should be disallowed from uploading any updates into unstable until these are resolved. I'd honestly like to see a freeze scheduled several times a year, every three or four months, but six months at the longest. If we have the resolve to do it, and stick with our schedule, I think Debian would be very much improved.
