Things will improve [LWN.net]

Things will improve

Posted May 4, 2005 4:47 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559)
Parent article: Debian Sarge freezes

Freezing Sarge will be hugely cathartic for Debian, it will get a monkey off of their back so they can move forward on the reduced platform list.

People need to remember that Debian is not trying to be Fedora or Gentoo. There are already numerous distros providing the bleeding edge with various degrees of config assistance/packaging options etc. Debian is offering the "must work" (as opposed to "just work" which seems less mission-critical) alternative, and its useful for someone to perform the heavy testing and fixing they do.

I am satisfied that the Debian crowd is making moves to keep itself relevant with a new team leader, a new set of targets, and a release in the bag. Having been burned in the past by the "maybe it works" distros in the past, I will be seriously considering their future offerings.

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Things will improve

Posted May 6, 2005 0:07 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

> Freezing Sarge will be hugely cathartic for Debian, it will get a monkey off of their back so they can move forward on the reduced platform list.

Indeed, the Freeze already has many convinced that a Sarge release is close at hand. Some even expect it this month.

This frees much time for more important "Ivory Tower" pursuits. Arguing about whether particular pieces of software are free or nonfree. Seperate arguments about whether the images are free or nonfree. Other arguments about whether the documentation is free or nonfree.

Of course, there are other concerns that need to be addressed, which are not quite so "Ivory Tower" as that. For example, just who do those Ubuntu guys think they are? They are releasing a Distro that claims to be Debian compatible, and yet their packages are not 3.5 years old. What's worse, they seem to be a popular distro. If this doesn't stop, we might have to cooperate with someone else in the Debian space! We might end up like (gasp!) Fedora, and have to deal with multiple repositories in a Bazaar-like fashion instead of doing things in the Cathedral-like fashion that we are accustomed to. Where will it all end?

Please don't take this too seriously.

I used to take Debian seriously, but now I follow Debian news with amusement.