Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him? [LWN.net]

Huh?

Posted Oct 6, 2008 21:38 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

You are too easily irritable, since the question you ask (what's Lenny?) is answered in the first complete sentence (after "Hi!") in the article.

...which is not included in the excerpt. If you reread the complaint (may be too emotional, but that's probably because it happens so often and is so irritating) it's directed specifically at LWN editors not at the authors of the original article. The whole except looks like this:

What you can do for "Lenny"
The Debian project is looking for folks to help them kick "Lenny" out the door. To that end, they have created a detailed list of tasks suitable for regular users as well as developers. "The big question is: What can you do, to help release "Lenny" at least in this quarter? That's pretty easy: Fix rc-bugs, take care, that the fixed packages are migrated to "Lenny", do upgrade tests, document problems in the release-notes. Pretty simple, isn't it? Click below for the full list.

First sentence? Ok: The Debian project is looking for folks to help them kick "Lenny" out the door. Oh, poor Lenny. The big bad Debian project is kicking him out of the door - and it's not ashamed to announce that ... We should save him! Will the old clothes help? Or will he need shelter first? May be we should call Red Cross? First sentence surely does not help and the whole except is barely decipherable either - you should read the article to understand what it talks about... Yellow press employs tricks like this, but I expect better from LWN...

YOU KICKED LENNY YOU BASTARD !

Posted Oct 6, 2008 21:49 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

This post was sent to debian-devel-announce. People subscribed there are expected to know what lenny stand for.

I understand Ubuntu release codename are annoying since they change so often,
but Debian stable release codename, seriously ?

Debian's post was Ok, LWN's announce of it was not

Posted Oct 6, 2008 22:05 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

It's as simple as that: you can not expect "general public" to know what the Debian developers or users know. Most LWN readers are not Debian developers. And not all are Debian users, believe it or not.. This is what the initial buchanmilne's complaint was all about...

Debian's post was Ok, LWN's announce of it was not

Posted Oct 6, 2008 22:40 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I don't see him explaining what 'rc5' means when there is a article about the Linux kernel either. Nobody knows this stuff unless they are familiar about it.

In a news article there it is completely, and totally, unreasonable to explain every codeword or other detail. Frankly I am suprised that anybody reading this website doesn't automatically know what Debian Lenny is.

Seriously. If you don't know your living under a rock. If your at all a Linux professional or hobbyist or anything like that and you don't know some very basic things (like this) about Debian that is a HUGE gap in your knowledge, and you should, right now, go down and do some basic research. You are missing out, big time. It's only for your own benefit.

--------------------------------

You know what happens when you type the terms 'Debian' and 'Lenny' in google and click 'I feel lucky'?

http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/

This information is NOT difficult to find out. It's not secret. In fact it's sprayed all over the place any time anybody talks about Debian for anything.

Debian's post was Ok, LWN's announce of it was not

Posted Oct 7, 2008 8:14 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

I think what the original poster is complaining about is that this work is burdoned on him
everywhere. I know that quite well. Yes I know debian, yes I even know that the code
names are figures in Toy Story. But every time someone on the DRBD mailing list or
anywhere else asks a question like "I installed DRBD on Lenny and have this problem", I
just stop reading, because I simply don't want to do this anymore. Debian has already a
perfect scheme: unstable, testing, stable. That's what makes sense and what gives you
at least some information about what this user is doing.

Same goes for Ubuntu, where it's even worse because the user might be on any version
of the last years or even an older LTS. With their year-based version numbers I'd at least
immediately get an idea about how old this users's version is.

Code names are exactly that: code. The original intent of "code" is that _not_ everyone
understands it and that works quite well.

Debian's post was Ok, LWN's announce of it was not

Posted Oct 7, 2008 10:58 UTC (Tue) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link]

I think what the original poster is complaining about is that this work is burdoned on him everywhere.

Of course, if you don't even know what "Lenny" is.

But every time someone on the DRBD mailing list or anywhere else asks a question ...

.. it would still be better to complain on this mailing list.

With their year-based version numbers I'd at least immediately get an idea about how old this users's version is.

Uhm, they use some kind of Hungarian notation? You seem to forget that every code needs an interpreter.

Thank you for proving my point

Posted Oct 7, 2008 14:05 UTC (Tue) by buchanmilne (guest, #42315) [Link]

This post was sent to debian-devel-announce.

But, I originally said:

Sure, that's not the subject of the mail, but the mail was sent to a Debian-specific list (thus, nothing wrong with assuming familiarity). But, LWN isn't supposed to be a distro-specific site.

I'm fine with people referring to releases by codename on mailing lists dedicated to that software project. But, using it outside the project is meaningless IMHO. That being the whole point of a code name, by definition.

I understand Ubuntu release codename are annoying since they change so often, but Debian stable release codename, seriously ?

Well, I'm actually wondering if anyone recognized the distribution codenames I used at the end of my original post:

Sorry, but that just doesn't Tikanga the Traktopel with me.

The fact that no one has commmented on that seems to indicate that people *aren't* familiar with linux distribution releases by their code name, proving my point.

Huh?

Posted Oct 6, 2008 23:20 UTC (Mon) by efexis (guest, #26355) [Link]

We should save him! Will the old clothes help? Or will he need shelter first? May be we should call Red Cross

Well this is a Linux publication, so what would your guess be?

Whilst I hate for this to turn into some slashdotesk flaming, you're both blatently just being difficult. I knew what was meant by Lenny (enough within the context) and I haven't used a Linux distribution in years (I compile everything from the source at the top of the stream), so there's no way it's only people using Debian that would know what it is.

I don't think it's a failure on the part of the editor to assume that readers of a regular Linux publication have a bell or two ring when reading "Lenny", I believe it a failure on the reader if a bell or two doesn't, at least I fail to understand why you'd be reading here without cursory knowledge of one of the more major distributions, as it doesn't really indicate much interest for the subject.