[vox-tech] Debian Woody Officially Released

[Matt Roper]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2002 at 09:30:48PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
...
> But the point is that, from the viewpoint of running systems, your news
> we're supposed to be "happy" about amounted to no change at all:
> Systems that were running Debian-stable yesterday are still running
> Debian-stable.  Those running Debian-testing yesterday are still 
> running Debian-testing.  And the bleeding-edge people who were running
> Debian-unstable ("sid") aren't bleeding any more or less than they were
> yesterday.
> 
> Basically, the only people affected are those using installation-disk 
> sets, and all this means is that they can now get official sets instead
> of unofficial ones.  Which probably work about the same as they did
> yesterday, actually.

I'm well aware of how Debian releases work, but you're overlooking a
couple of important points when you say that the woody release means "no
change at all."  The stable branch of Debian _is_ widely used by people
running servers because those people need to be up to date on security
fixes, but don't want to be following a moving target.  Debian's testing
branch does have an excellent track record, but since it is constantly
changing, it is not the appropriate choice for many server admins.  Now
that woody is stable, admins can do a single upgrade and then go back to
only worrying about security fixes.  I run sid on all of my desktops, so
this this release means nothing as far as those computers are concerned,
but I also had some servers running potato -- now I gain easy access to
a more up to date set of packages on these computers, but still don't
have to worry about any changes after this point other than security
fixes.

But even if you don't run any servers under the stable branch, this
release is still something to be happy about because it will make it
easier to attract other people to Debian.  I know a lot of people used
to reject Debian because they saw how horribly out of date stable
(potato) was compared to other distributions.  Even when it was
explained to them that they could upgrade to woody or sid very easily,
they still thought the process sounded convoluted and rejected Debian
without giving it a try.  This will finally change now that Woody has
inherited the "stable" title.

Finally, some maintainers haven't even been putting packages in sid
while waiting for woody to stabilize (I think KDE3 might fall into this
category--the KDE maintainer is only making debs available at an
external location).  Now that woody has become stable and sarge has been
branched, these maintainers may go back to putting their packages in
sid.


Matt

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