[PHILOSOPHY] Stability and Release Schedules

Jim Cornette fc-cornette at insight.rr.com
Fri Apr 28 02:40:23 UTC 2006


John Wendel wrote:
> 
> Here's your chance to slap me up side of the head!
> 
> Reading the Debian thread (and others) has made me wonder why Fedora has 
> to have "releases" at all. Why not have a continuously evolving 
> distribution? One would start by downloading an "installer system" that 
> would then use the existing mechanisms (yum, whatever) to update itself. 
> From this point on, why would one need "releases"? Just keep releasing 
> updates and new packages exactly as things are done now.
> 
> I know there must be something wrong with this scenario; would someone 
> like to hit me with a clue stick.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John
> 


I like a progressively improving system and enjoyed the time that I 
participated with the development phases. My last visit was smooth and 
the breakage level was lower than previous beta phases. I however recall 
the problems that I had when upgrading from one release to another. From 
one release to another, there are major changes that happen from release 
to release. I was able to work through the obstacles but feel they would 
not be as great a factor with an evolving distribution. Releases are 
more revolutionary and a lot of people suggest fresh installations 
because of the factors a snapshot of releases entails.

In my observation, a progressing release would serve the computer user 
better than one release frozen approximately six months between each 
other. There are problems that you have to overcome and each project 
develops their software during different time frames.

Ideally there would be progression for each project and a base that is 
stable to enable the other projects to have a base to rely on.

I'm for a stable base to allow for a more free flowing progression of 
all the many packages involved and a distribution that tracks upstream 
as closely as possible.

I'm sure there are pros and cons for both scenarios.

Jim


-- 
Every program has (at least) two purposes:
	the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.




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