Walther is basically right [LWN.net]

Walther is basically right

Posted Mar 16, 2005 11:09 UTC (Wed) by jstAusr (guest, #27224)
In reply to: Walther is basically right by dwheeler
Parent article: The 2005 Debian Project Leader election

To say that "Anything that takes 3 years to release is completely broken." when referring to the Debian distribution, would be similar (not exactly the same as) to saying your writings are completely wrong. Your comments show a lack of understanding of the subject. Anyone connected to the internet has several options if they prefer not to use the stable release including; testing, unstable, backports, and partial upgrades. For those not connected to the internet, things wouldn't be as good but they could still get a set of CDs made from testing, and its not like stable isn't functional. After the next Debian release, the processes that will be in place, will cause all your concerns to basically go away. Debian doesn't need to have six month releases, they need to be a great distribution and have more people understand the goals of the project.

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Walther is basically right

Posted Mar 16, 2005 18:22 UTC (Wed) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

> its not like stable isn't functional.

Unless you want to run recent hardware. If you're lucky you can get enough installed to upgrade right away; if you're unlucky you end up with an unsupported hard drive or network adapter.

> After the next Debian release, the processes that will be in place, will cause all your concerns to basically go away.

We have all heard this before (testing was going to do it, for example). I think the new process will help, but it is not a magic bullet, and there definitely need to be more changes.

Debian doesn't need 6 month releases, to be sure. That's ridiculously fast for servers. But like Joey Hess said recently, at this rate, Debian is going to manage two releases in ten years. That's unacceptable for everyone.