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Social Contract Amendment May Bump Sarge To 2005
An anonymous reader submits "Debian's Release Manager Anthony Towns announced that after the Grand Resolution to amend the Social Contract has been successful (it does not only apply to software any more), vital parts to modern Linux systems, such as important documentation, firmware needed for proper hardware support will have to be removed from the distribution before the next release. Moreover, the upcoming installer will need to be changed. He goes on to say that he does not expect this to happen by the end of this year which means that Sarge will not be released in 2004."
Sarge does not need to be "released" to be relevant. The software still runs on the debian OS. You can still upgrade your kernel. IMO, the best thing about debian is that you can start with a very minimal linux install and add the packages you need as you need them a lot easier than is possible with many other distributions.
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i use and like debian. but i want new packages to be released, and for it to generally appear to be supported.
if you dont want non-free stuff, fine, release sarge, its almost ready (and long delayed) and make removal of non free packages a goal of the next release.
We have machines at work that are currently running Redhat 7.2. A couple are RedHat 8, 9, and RHEL 2.1. Why are they not all running the latest and greatest RedHat? Because we either can't afford the downtime (not to mention configuration) to upgrade every time that RedHat comes out with its next release, or the bleeding edge releases break things. Unless a newer release provides some feature/function that we need in production and we can't get any other way, we don't upgrade each time a release comes out. We've even downgraded a couple of machines from RHEL 3.0 to 2.1 because getting some Oracle software installed was near imposible (even with Oracle consultants on-site!)
I'd much have a rock solid server that performs its job all the time than have a bleeding edge server that requires 2 or 3 upgrades a year just to stay bleeding edge.
I think that the Debian people are right on this one , however the FSF foundation is partly to blame because of the invariant sections in the FDL . (why glibc wont have documentation)
I think the solution, since non-free is being kept, should be to include the non-free repositories in the default "sources.list" file and allow tasksel to use non-free packages for documentation under a "Non-Free documentation" header, no non-free stuff should needed for the bootstrap installation(although binary kernel module won't be available by default). Thats the best comprimise, IMHO.
Could we stop the Microsoft, Debian, Gentoo and Fedora, and *BSD astroturfing please?
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Businesses use Redhat because they offer commerical support, something I don't believe Debian offers, as Debian is not a commercial enterprise.
I certainly see your point that for some popular devices (e.g. nVidia cards), the proprietary drivers are much better than the open ones. I also agree that going the moral road will turn away some users.
/etc, /dev, and /proc are set up just right.
However, Debian is imho big enough to pull this sort of thing. If some micro-league, half-assed distro went this route, it would die in obscurity, but a major product like Debian will survive. Furthermore, by rejecting proprietary firmware and documentation, Debian is raising awareness of some important issues (like Fedora not including mp3 support raises awareness of patent encumbered technologies).
Say you get a shiny new pci card with a little tux on the box, and a proprietary driver on the CD. Cool, huh? No. Not cool. The driver will work with your Linux system provided:
-you use kernel 2.4 or maybe 2.6
-you compiled said kernel with gcc 3.2 or 3.3
-you use glibc 2.somethingorother
-your
Years pass. Linux gains 20% desktop market share. Duke Nukem Forever is released for Mac and Lintel. You fish out an old computer from your closet; you want to install a Linux (kernel 3.0; compiled with gcc 3.5; with glibc 2.somethingelse; and a GNU/Darwin directory layout) to turn into a streaming virtual reality server for your apartment. Guess what's the probability of your closed-source driver still working?
Open source drivers might be a hassle to use in the short term, but C source is still the most portable way to distribute software.
It is true that the "apt" part of debian -- a modular packaging system with dependencies that are carefully expressed and automatically installed -- is a beautiful thing, and that other distros have similar tools.
However, even just looking at the practical (rather that philosophical) side, apt is not the best part of Debian.
The best part of Debian is a set of packaging conventions (the Debian Policy Manual), and a set of tools and a QA system to support that system, with the result that the software you use from Debian is consistently well-integrated, even though it is crafted by a distributed group of volunteers.
The social norms and continual build-up and exposition of best practices, expressed in part by the Debian Policy Manual, is really the best practical characteristic of Debian.
The freedom thing (and corresponding attention to software licensing) is nice, too.
Or amend the social contract to promise hardware support and then prioritize the goals to hardware support takes a priority until a "free" option is created or becomes available?
It appears as though Debian is going to take a big step backwards if something isn't done. The goals are clearly good, yet the real world has always required a compromise between the ideal and the real. Don't the Debian developers actually work in IT for a living?
I'm really concerned about this, because I was highly considering Debian for the next OS to try since RH is discontinuing free security updates, and I'm not sure at all how Fedora is supposed to address it. The last thing I need, though, is a hardware problem, particularly with a network card.
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Adding to your post, I would like to make the case for Debian unstable.
Unstable in no way means it's really unstable. What it means is that while packages have had some basic testing, the distribution as a whole hasn't been religiously tested, and, consequently, isn't years behind the curve as stable is.
Packages in unstable often provide improvements and bugfixes that the versions in stable didn't yet have.* This means that, while stable is guaranteed to be stable, many people will find unstable more usable (especially people using Gaim, as the IM networks change protocols once in a while, breaking older versions).
The message is, if you want guaranteed stability, use Debian stable. If you want to stay current, but still want to have the benefits of Debian (easy software installation, automatic dependency resolution), use Debian unstable. Don't use testing, unless you really intend to test it - it's almost guaranteed to be broken.
* Note that security fixes are backported to stable. This means that you can keep using the version of the package you have always used, and be sure your configuration keeps working, while still getting security updates that are only available through upgrading for other distros.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
If you want stuff up to date, but want to have something that would be considered "stable" by other distros, you run Sarge (or testing).
The Woody distribution is for cases when you want to run a bunch of applications predictably. This means that your production application will run the same on day one as it does on day 100. An update will not break your application. An update will not change the way the application works. That is the point of stable - stable operation for a long period of time.
And yes, you can install 2.4.26 in Woody (from kernel.org). Woody actually has 2.4.x kernels no matter what the trolls are talking about.
As with any group of over 1000 individuals, your statement is a vast generalisation.
How can you call us "rude and confrontational" when all you are basing that on are some mailing list posts, primarily in a mailing list which is renowned for that behaviour.
Personally, as a Debian Developer, I try to assist people and fix bugs in my packages, as my way of contributing back to a phenomenal set of software. Debian has over 5000 packages in the distribution, and while those are mostly not written by DDs, they are packaged, and made to play together nicely and install, upgrade and uninstall cleanly, and the whole damn thing just works.
Yes, of course Debian Developers are principled people who care passionately about things other than software, and if you stick a thousand of them in a mailing list together there is bound to be fire! And hell, some of us are geeks without social skill. Cry me a river.
I really wish they would make up their minds. Are they trying to provide the most stable distro out there, or are they trying to be an unofficial organ of the FSF? Both perhaps? If this last is the case, then they ought to have been more balanced about this decision. Why push back the release cycle by a whole year just to make the GNU zealots happy? Why not wait until the next release for these change and bring Sarge out on time? At least the message there would have been that "we agree with FSF/GNU ideals in principal, but we have other goals which are as important as far as this release goes."
Instead, the message they are sending is that "Debian is for GNU zealots only. We don't give a damn about anyone else. If you have a need for any closed-source program or proprietary hardware, you are evil." I am sick of this attitude, frankly.
Don't get me wrong, I respect what RMS and FSF/GNU have done for the cause of free/OSS software, but I simply can't agree with the notion that closed-source is evil. I prefer Linus' approach which is essentially to say that we think free/OSS is a better idea, but that authors have a right to go closed-source if they want. Personally, I tend to think that the BSD license is often, maybe even generally, superior to the GPL. I use Linux because it ofers more choices than BSD, not because I dislike BSD or its license. I had thought that Debian was distancing itself from GNU, but I guess they've done a 180.
I have used Debian for over three years, because I like the package system. I am not a GNU zealot. Over the last two years, I have become increasingly annoyed with holdups in the release cycle, but promises of a quick Sarge release went a long way to apease me. This is the last straw. There are other distros (Gentoo for one) with as good or better package/ports systems, and that at least pretend to care about real-world users. Goodbye Debian.
P.S. Before anyone flames me, keep in mind that in part I am blowing off steam out of utter frustration. If I spoke overly harshly, I apologize to anyone I offended.
It's going to be hard to say this without people getting their panties in a knot, but I absolutely hate trying to 1) get debian systems running how I want and 2) keep them running how I want.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like if some of the Debian folk spent as much time fixing their distribution as they do ranting about the philosophy behind their system, it could just about literally jump into my computer, read my mind, and magically do everything I wanted without me touching a keyboard. As it is though, I'm forever saying to myself "now where the hell did they put THAT file, since it's not in its standard location..." and "what version is this package really? It looks like version 3.1 from 2 years ago.... no wait, that's 3.1-15... wtf is the -15? It has features that weren't released until 3.9? Huh?!??" and similar.
I once made the mistake of trying to figure out what flags were being used to compile a Debian package... after jumping around through about 7 different intertwined and slightly obfuscated shell scripts for about an hour, I gave up.
Unfortunately, I'm still stuck using Debian on one server (the owner doesn't want to change OSs), but I've gone to Slackware on all my systems. Much simpler system to deal with overall, IMNSHO.
You have just pointed out the #1 reason why sysadmins who compile from source on production servers need a beating with a clue stick. I'm not going to get all superior, because I know that at one time, I did the same thing. The point is, to put something new on a production machine (like samba with acl support for debian) you: -Compile it on a development box with prefix=/tmp/what_you_want -Make a package of it -test the package on a second test box to make sure it works -install the package on your server This provides several advantages besides the one you stated: Firstly, you never have to have dev tools on your production server (and a lot of rootkits depend on these being present). Secondly, you are sure that when you deploy, it's quick and painless, and you won't brake your server with a botched compile. Thirdly, you can deploy then on multiple servers quickly and efficiently.
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