On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 11:35:02AM -0700, Michael M. wrote: > > 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
That's not really a fair characterization. The Debian project (release managers, developers, et al) value the target dates. However, they value completeness and stability *more* than the calendar. > 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. > Again, that is wrong. If you follow the developer and release mailing lists, you will see that tons of effort goes into making the Debian release something that can be done with minimal effort on the part of the admin. This is no easy task. Debian includes a tremendous amount of software, which can be configured in nearly innumerable configurations. > 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. > I started with Debian shortly after Woody was released. I remember being disappointed with the repeated delays of Sarge. However, I stuck with it because I knew that when the release finally did come it would be rock solid. I currently have around a dozen servers in production running Sarge doing things from serving LTSP, mail servers, web servers, file servers, LDAP servers, etc. Now, all the development and user lists are open to the public. Debian's entire BTS is accessible by the public. However, the predictability that it appears you want, timely releases at predefined intervals, is not very likely to be realistic with Debian. Debian is not motivated by trying to get good PR for being on time or by trying to make money with a quick release. So, you are "stuck" with people who are making their best efforts to produce a quality free operating system. If you don't like it, I believe that Debian has a 100% money-back guarantee. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
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