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On Tuesday 03 February 2004 22:30, Donnie Berkholz wrote: |
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> I was wondering what stable actually means, so I looked it up in the |
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> dictionary. Here's the definition I found most suitable to our purpose: |
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> |
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> 3a. Consistently dependable; steadfast of purpose. |
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> |
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> Now, I see nothing that implies that "dependable" means "can't upgrade." |
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> |
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> What's your argument that makes backports superior to upgrades for bug |
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> fixes? Maybe I'm missing something. |
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|
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Basically when one maintains a farm of computers with many users that use it |
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for various purposes there are a number of issues at play: |
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- New versions could introduce new bugs that some of the users might hit |
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(going back is often a problem) |
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- New versions could remove or change features that particular users want. In |
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any case any non-bug-fix release will create some level of user confusion |
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- Install's are often image based. While it is possible to have a few changes |
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be propagated after mirror installation, bigger changes need to be included |
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on new images with all the needed testing etc. |
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- Many company policies demand new rounds of testing before a new version of |
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any package is released. The smaller the change (security fix only, usually |
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a patch of less than 30 lines), the less testing is needed. |
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- Each and every change often needs to be manually reviewed. If there is just |
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a security patch there will be no changed dependencies and less effort |
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needed for the review. |
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|
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Paul |
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|
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-- |
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Paul de Vrieze |
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Gentoo Developer |
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Mail: pauldv@g.o |
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Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net |
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