Re: Debian et. al.

["Scott C. Linnenbringer" <sl@panix.com>]

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 15:18:48 -0500, Harold Crouch <hcrouch@mchsi.com>
wrote: 

> Ahhh, didn't make myself clear at all.  Let's try again.  In the world
> of Windows, Sarge and X2 would both be termed vaporware.  Anyone
> sitting around anxiously waiting for them to be released would be well
> advised to get a life.

That's because the stable release of Debian is meant to be absolutely
perfect, rigorously tested against and left unchanged with the exception
of security updates. Debian likes to get things done right.

> The Debian project leader (is that what they
> call him?) has indicated that he would like to release Sarge in
> December 2003.

False. The *release manager* Anthony Towns has indicated that date. And
if you actually read that message, as I did on debian-devel-announce,
you could gather that it is a rough date.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-announce-200308/msg00010.html

> I don't think it's going to happen.  Last I looked
> there were something like 700-800 bugs marked critical.

There's about 693 RC-critical bugs, last time I checked (a weekly
mailing is sent out to debian-devel-announce.) That's spanning over
about 10,000+ packages in sid right now, waiting to be pushed to sarge.

In fact, if it honestly kept like that, Debian could release sarge in
about two weeks. Debian hasn't even frozen anything yet, a lot of stuff
is still going on in terms of development.

And you're right, it's not going to be released on December 1st. But
then again, it wasn't meant to be released then. ajt was throwing out a
very liberal release date, hence why it was restricted to
debian-devel-announce. Don't go throwing out the terms "vaporware" when
an actual, public release date hasn't even been set yet.

> (!@#$%^&*
> Sure wish I could remember what the URL is for that graph.)

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-announce-200310/msg00011.html

> Similarly,
> the time lapse between the release of X1 and X1.1 was...  Well, maybe
> it wasn't as long as I thought.  I just checked the Xandros forum, and
> it cranked up in November '02.  It sure feels longer.  Anyway, the
> point is, GET A LIFE!  

I think you're caught up in this idea of "fast release dates," like
6-month release cycles. Debian releases over a span of one to two years,
which are times when the distribution changes radically. In fact,
testing and sid "release" every day, and a strong majority of Debian
users believe -testing and -unstable are just as stable as -stable. And
for the users who like to stick with stable releases, backports of
software from sid (and sarge) built by Debian developers *themseleves*
are available in plenty.

So to conclude anything about Debian from it's release cycle, or
anything about any project from it's release cycle, would be non
sequitur and rather dumb.

-- 
scott c. linnenbringer    |  sl@panix.com
http://www.panix.com/~sl  | sl@moslug.org
jabber: sl@theoretic.com  |  irc: Jawoota

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