LWN: Comments on "What you can do for "Lenny""

Hmm... Should I include the whole contents of dictionary, too? Which one? Oxford? Webster?

anton — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:04:16 +0000

And if I google for "Lenny", the first hit explains it. It's not even necessary to google for "Debian Lenny".

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

tpenfoun — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:23:13 +0000

Sorry Lenny was the binoculars, Bo (Bo Peep) was the girl who took care of the sheep...

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

jschrod — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:51:53 +0000

If you wouldn't scream so much and be even more emotional than buchanmilne, your argument might get more listened to. Just a hint...

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

alfille — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:33:19 +0000

Homeless Lenny? Plausible. There are enough personality conflicts in the Debian project that wondering whether Lenny is human or intangible is valid. At least at first glance.

This is just like reviewing program code. Everything can be unobfuscated with enough effort, but clarity has many advantages.

We read LWN for a higher level view of the linux development scene. I assume that the editor was so immersed in Debian that he automatically knew what Lenny meant. I know that I didn't.

While the vehemence of the original complaint is misplaced, the point is valid.

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

hppnq — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:05:50 +0000

Some people like to spend time arguing about, say, conventions, instead of, say, simply reading the first line of the article they are commenting on. Happens all the time.

But what is this dodgy "Debian" people keep talking about?!

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

allesfresser — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:11:18 +0000

If you don't already know what Lenny is, then the content of this article is useless to you, since you haven't been paying attention to Debian enough to know what the upcoming stable release's name is, which has been named for quite a few MONTHS now, and therefore you wouldn't be of much help (or even desire to help) since you're not familiar with how things have been progressing. So, just go on to other articles. Why annoy everyone else who actually is the target audience for the article? This is the way things are done with this project--if you don't like it, start participating enough to know what's going on before insisting that things change to suit your preference.

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

buchanmilne — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:16:12 +0000

LWN and many other news oriented sites will copy a statement or two from the actual article to give an idea of what the article contains.

If you actually read the section that is quoted on the main page, you will notice that it is not sufficient to determine that Lenny is the upcoming Debian stable release. It could be many other projects related to Debian.

Thank you for proving my point

buchanmilne — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:05:21 +0000

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.

What you can do for "Lenny"

nowster — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:35:10 +0000

Debian Grolsch spoof

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

rvfh — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:59:53 +0000

First you missed the first sentence that defines what Lenny is.

Second, 'WTF' is not polite and you should keep this kind of words (and their initials) for those sites/lists were people like to rant and insult each other. This is not the case here. Please.

Third, most LWN readers do known who Lenny is: a shepherdess, girlfriend of Woody.

And fourth, for Pete's sake, is that all so important? Why so much rage? Why say "100% editing failure"? Is this not quite out of measure?

C'mon, get a grip.

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

yyz — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:37:49 +0000

All you had to do was click on the link to the full text of the article. LWN and many other news oriented sites will copy a statement or two from the actual article to give an idea of what the article contains. One is not guaranteed to see the real first sentence in that section. This is also done in newspapers and magazines. I am suprised you have not noticed that fact.

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

hppnq — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:58:53 +0000

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.

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

niner — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:14:54 +0000

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.

What you can do for "Lenny"

pabs — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:15:00 +0000

Um, I've been running Debian on the desktop for years, several years before Ubuntu was created in fact.

Also, Debian is a do-ocracy, if you want Debian on the desktop to be better, do something about it!

What you can do for "Lenny"

yarikoptic — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:01:11 +0000

It is sad that Lenny did not make it on a promised time point. Nevertheless, current snapshot of lenny is probably much more stable (has less of RC bugs) than most (if not all) of the alternative distributions's releases. Debian team doesn't rush and cooks lenny until it is done, and I appreciate it. Go team (I must confess that I am a Debian developer myself :-P).

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

k8to — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:41:37 +0000

Sorry all naysayers.

The choice of referring to debian projects solely by unsortable codenames when it is generally known the release order is hiding information and stupid.

The names used to refer to successive releases of the SAME THING should be sortable, so that users can determine the order. When referring to an imminent release, one shuld use turns of phrase such as:

"Lenny", the upcoming release of Debian Stable, currently in release process, optimistically expected to complete this year.

Of course this is insufficient, since the version number has undoubtedly been selected by now and should also be invoked, regardless of whatever phantom menaces you can conjure about CD-Rom sales. And the codename, as above needs to be sortable.

Huh?

efexis — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:20:03 +0000

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.

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

drag — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:40:30 +0000

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

khim — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:05:27 +0000

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...

Hmm... Should I include the whole contents of dictionary, too? Which one? Oxford? Webster?

khim — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:55:27 +0000

WTF and RSS are explained in a dictionary (select just "most common" category - usually it's enough). "Lenny" is not. Plus my post is not shown on main page of LWN so it's not so important...

YOU KICKED LENNY YOU BASTARD !

ballombe — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:49:37 +0000

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 ?

Huh?

khim — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:38:49 +0000

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...

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

allesfresser — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:35:59 +0000

Excuse me, could you explain these confusing terms you used: "WTF" and "RSS"? They should be explained in every post so no one will be misled or confused.

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

khim — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:28:40 +0000

No, I guess I just expected that one might read the first few words of the blurb and see that it was talking about a Debian release.

Excuse meeeee. I've read the whole thing, not just first few words:

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.

What is this "Lenny"? New bugtracker? New installer? May be it's a new version of super-free Browser? Oh, right: I should open the the article to understand what the article excerpt is saying! WTF is this? Right: 100% editing failure. May be buchanmilne is too emotional, but this does not make your failure as editor less glaring.

Codenames must be explained either in title (preferrably) or in article excerpt, not in the article itself, or on the first page of article's website or, god forbid, on the "first result returned by Google" (I've see such justifications too). It's editorial work. If I just want unabridged uncommented stream of announces - I can always add 10'000 RSS links to Google Reader... May be you know what all these codenames mean (I suppose it's part of your work as editor), but readers surely shouldn't know that...

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

JoeBuck — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:46:48 +0000

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.

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

jake — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:45:54 +0000

> Or, should we expect everyone to know the codename of every release
> of every piece of open source software.

No, I guess I just expected that one might read the first few words of the blurb and see that it was talking about a Debian release.

Sorry for the confusion.

jake

Who is "Lenny" and why should I do anything for him?

buchanmilne — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:37:46 +0000

Sorry, but this issue is *really* starting to irritate me.

I hang out in the IRC channels of some technologies I use and can assist others, and then someone comes along saying "I can't get foo to work in Breezy". In an OS-agnostic channel, you expect everyone to keep up with release codenames of your distro??

Honestly.

How about LWN changes the topic of this article to "What you can do for the upcoming Debian stable ("Lenny") release". 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.

Or, should we expect everyone to know the codename of every release of every piece of open source software.

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

What you can do for "Lenny"

ciol — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:46:44 +0000

We will do nothing.
They chose to only target system administrators?
Stick with that and ask them to help.