From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1PmoVg-0002x9-TR for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:25:41 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D2F89E08C9; Tue, 8 Feb 2011 14:25:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-fx0-f53.google.com (mail-fx0-f53.google.com [209.85.161.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2A6AE0845 for ; Tue, 8 Feb 2011 14:24:49 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm11 with SMTP id 11so7938248fxm.40 for ; Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:24:49 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=US5RPQo4sZ2lOK9MohP9YJ0twMECVoHZCh01yRoPhcU=; b=vqQf3JPJ1x0oCNJkSQqsBYLOGglO9t5F0spyrqYcxQfLSnywlWs3bb1wzLfYi/J88V tm4CxUhow9ADuSV8IyIORJ1ioGrW2xOrMgAMfq+3C7h5dmLJDjIqDfs2tpP45NdfD9G5 MUNEFzqZkEVOOitUuD45Qu6AXIYoNnJzFQQzc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; b=VUH131I0lgGKKrDFiBPMuvWuy8G3MWxyAc6Yy+w4S6spCmVLiacuLaItRUrw7sd2F8 7nuW/3XrWi6eZ4c5RO5XF9D2aS/2Ejcx62tbbVqmcnY5TTZZyjx22DYHb3aGfDu1EBM6 FP/PSIH+Anz7QuClZ1DMAznFFH8X+g9ekZ7Kc= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.223.101.195 with SMTP id d3mr11484566fao.21.1297175088972; Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:24:48 -0800 (PST) Sender: freemanrich@gmail.com Received: by 10.223.102.139 with HTTP; Tue, 8 Feb 2011 06:24:48 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20110208120348.GA13292@bookie.wireless.manchester.ac.uk> References: <20110207205059.GA10939@bookie> <1297165414.2669.1@NeddySeagoon> <20110208120348.GA13292@bookie.wireless.manchester.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 09:24:48 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: bUTioVEdTxuFl3-bOmjyTbEJfxk Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] avoiding urgent stabilizations From: Rich Freeman To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: d458a744575008601bb0d863f737d775 On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Markos Chandras wrote: > I see what you are saying. However, the 6 months testing is far from > what I have in mind. I could see there being room for something in-between, but I share the concerns of others that rolling releases are part of what makes Gentoo, well, Gentoo. The problem with snapshots is that there is almost always SOMETHING wrong with them, and if you don't release until they're near-perfect then you're pursing 99.999% quality and most devs don't care enough to work hard towards that. As a result you end up with very long release cycles. I could see room for a system where every week a portage snapshot is created, and then run through automated testing. The test results are then posted, and the release tarball is made available for download. Then people can update to it if they think it is good enough. Serious issues would of course be spotted and immediately fixed in-tree so that the next weekly release is better, and the typical user experience would still be to use the live tree so that they get an experience similar to what they have. Honestly, I don't even know that this would really work well. It might be better to just have a tinderbox that does automated full-tree testing weekly and just post the results and let devs look at them and fix things. However, I don't think any system is likely to work (except on Debian timelines) if it involves a release-when-its-ready approach unless ready is something really minimal like "system set compiles and boots." Time vs quality vs cost - pick two. Oh, for Gentoo we've pretty-much picked cost as being about as close to zero as you can get, so make that pick one. Debian stable favors quality, and there are definitely things I'd use debian for that I'd never use Gentoo for. That isn't knocking Gentoo - it is just a reflection of the fact that the distros have different philosophies.