Incoming from Chris Metzler:Agreed. Produce a stabel distro, let us deal with it.
But this assumption is wrong. The purpose of the existence of testing
and unstable is *not* to give users choices. It may also be true that
their existence gives users choices; but that's not what they're
fundamentally for. The purpose of their existence is to facilitate the
development process that produces stable releases. Users may decide to
I was around when Ian Murdock first introduced Debian. Back then, we had SLS and Slackware, the latter having been produced because the same un-fixed problems tended to be reproduced in subsequent issues of SLS. Debian's raison d'etre was stability in response to the lack of it in existing distributions.
I still think that's what Debian should be striving for. I don't see any point in catering to bleeding-edge-itis in Debian. If the user wants/needs newer software than stable provides, the Debian system can accomodate that through the installation of backports or even /usr/local. Debian has proven itself robust enough to support the creation of dependent distributions like Libranet and Knoppix. If the user demands bleeding edge, that's where they should be looking.
No change is necessary. If the user thinks stable is obsolete, it should be up to them to deal with that, and that means they should learn to add what they want onto stable, or go elsewhere. testing and unstable are for those who know what they're doing and are willing and able to understand the consequences, in the spirit of wanting to help Debian produce a future stable distribution. Debian should not be bothering to cater to bleeding-edge-itis in a misguided attempt to open up Debian to more users. Leave that to the Libranets and Knoppixes.
-- Damon L. Chesser [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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