Debian Maintainer Hints At September Release for Lenny

nerdyH writes "The Debian project's maintainer, Luke Claes, announced in an email Saturday that he will freeze the 'testing' or 'Lenny' tree, in preparation for a new stable release of Debian Linux in ... September! The freeze means that open source software developers have only a couple more days to package any applications that they want to be included in the next release of Debian — and by extension, in the inner sanctum source lists of distributions such as Ubuntu that are based on it. After the freeze starts next week, Debian maintainers will turn their attention to 364 release-critical bugs, and half-a-dozen high-priority goals. Given the work to be done, is September really feasible? Lenny always was a little slow getting back to his right place ..."

Comments

Obligatory "does it matter?"

[neapolitan]

I run Debian in several capacities -- stable on my work server, and unstable on my personal machine.

A lot of people are going to (quite accurately, I guess) point out that for anybody running unstable/experimental there is not much to this. I mean, release numbers are soooo 1990's, as a simple apt-get update; apt-get upgrade brings you up to the latest packages. Even experimental seems to lag waaaay behind other bleeding edge distros though (gentoo).

Of course, the release is more important for new installs or people running stable. I have been very impressed with Debian stable, the SSH bug nonwithstanding.

As software packages and Linux get more mature, I see the definition of a "release" issue becoming even less important for the non-server / non-corporate user. Continuous upgrades are the way of the future. Even on the M$ side this seems to be true, with their MS office 200x and "automatic upgrades."

Thoughts?

Re:Obligatory "does it matter?"

[AmonEzhno]

I agree that the release idea is a little outdated (especially being a freebsd user myself), however it is nice especially with desktop distributions to get new releases. I gather from your post that you seem to have a pretty good grasp of linux so it is not as much an issue for you or me, but more for the common(?) user. For example in ubuntu most releases indicate a significant change in feature set or update in packages. Most home users are not running unstable, so in all likelihood most users are not going to see the latest and greatest in features (unless they have some distinct need and compile from source); the point being that it is a cause for excitement and something to look forward to, at least in my experience.

On a side note: congrats to you for using Debian unstable, I have had poor luck in the past :P

Re:Obligatory "does it matter?"

[benuski]

There's now a security repository for testing, just like there is for stable, and the repos are in a default sources.list if you install testing directly. http://secure-testing-master.debian.net/

Re:Packaging... meh.

[AllIGotWasThisNick]

Moderation -1

100% Overrated

Sorry. "Frosty piss".

Re:Why the name "Lenny"?

[arrenlex]

All Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters. Lenny is a pair of binoculars with feet.

Re:What?

[WK2]

This is just a release announcement. As usual, they give you the month, but not the year.