Debian Decides To Adopt Time-Based Release Freezes

frenchbedroom writes "The ongoing Debconf 9 meeting in Cáceres, Spain has brought a significant change to Debian's project management. The Debian project will now freeze development in December of every odd year, which means we can expect a new Debian release in the spring of every even year, starting with 'Squeeze' in 2010. Until now, development freezing was decided by the Debian release team. From the announcement: 'The project chose December as a suitable freeze date since spring releases proved successful for the releases of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codenamed "Etch") and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("Lenny"). Time-based freezes will allow the Debian Project to blend the predictability of time based releases with its well established policy of feature based releases. The new freeze policy will provide better predictability of releases for users of the Debian distribution, and also allow Debian developers to do better long-term planning. A two-year release cycle will give more time for disruptive changes, reducing inconveniences caused for users. Having predictable freezes should also reduce overall freeze time.' We previously discussed talks between Canonical and the Debian release team about fixed freeze dates."

Comments

Previous way

[sleekware]

I've always liked Debian's way of doing their releases, it was unique and worked really well for them for awhile; I hope this new way works out for the best and mutually benefits both Debian and Ubuntu.

Re:Linux: Debian

[nosfucious]

And refering to Spring/Winter is too imprecise. It's currently (July) Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

Try refering to Quarter 1, Quatert 4, etc for times of the year.

However nit picking aside, at least we shall now get some certainty in the releases of (probably) the worlds best distro.

8-)

Re:Linux: Debian

[clang_jangle]

...limiting an OSS project to a time-based release cycle puts an artificial constraint on the development process. While it might be useful to encourage faster development in some cases, it is just as likely to force a new feature to be dropped at the last minute if it can't make it through the door in time.

I definitely agree, however I expect this decision was driven by concerns that Debian's popularity with businesses might be threatened by Ubuntu. Pointy-haired types like to see "regular" release schedules, rather than "we'll release it when it's done".

...the small font used for the non-mainpage stories makes me read the story title as "Lesbian decides to adopt time-based release freezes".

You might want to revisit your browser's font configuration then. I certainly would never depend on the font choices of web designers. :)