Dne, 14. 02. 2011 18:58:28 je Hans-J. Ullrich napisal(a):
Dear developers,
I hope, this might be the right list, to start a new discussion.
Additionally
this also should read developers and ftp-masters, as theire word has
great
weight.
Unfortunately, this is just a user-to-user list. There are other
dedicated lists for what you're trying to do, such as debian-project
etc.
Well, I want to like to suggest, to slightly change the policy for
debian/stable. Please let me explain. In the past years I am using
debian (now
for more than 8 years), there always was a problem with debian/stable
whenever
things changed, and new versions of applications or libs were not
allowed to
enter in stable. Doing so, all people using stable were not able to
use theire
programms before, as things changed. Among a lot of examples, just
let me pick
one to explain, I choose "Pidgin" (kopete, as well)
As yahoo and ICQ protocols were changed, pidgin was released in a new
version
with new libs. Everything went fine for testing and unstable users,
but stable
users could not use pidgin or kopete any more.
Such things happen and will happen in our fast changing times again
and again,
and IMO especially stable-users want a system that is running stable.
But
debian policy is causing more trouble than expected.
Some of us use Debian precisely because it's not a marketing-driven
commercial entity but a community driven distribution of *really free*
software. I personally don't see any need whatsoever to impose
shortsighted marketing mechanisms -- such as pointless innovation for
marketing's sake, or innovation of formats/protocols for vendor lock-in
sake, or the race to obsolescence for profit's sake, or the endless,
unethical search for cheaper workforce, and similar -- upon a
non-commercial, voluntary operating system such as Debian. Let's leave
it to Microsoft and other marketing houses to produce sellable
commodities and let Debian stay what it's always been -- an operating
system, and an excellent one at that. Not just another sellable
commodity. I don't replace my wife as soon as she gets the first gray
hair, and I sure hope she won't replace me with a younger guy as soon
as I get a bald spot. I honestly don't see why I should treat my
software very much differently.
So the Microsoft Instant Messaging protocol changed yet again? Well,
don't use Microsoft Instant Messaging then! Or run Windows if you
really can't live without Microsoft's proprietary "goodies".
So Open Office can't decode the most recent version of Microsoft's
proprietary document format? Well, guess what. That's not a
coincidence. It's a marketing competition strategy, it's called "vendor
lock-in" or "sabotaging the open document format". And you say we
should play in their hands, essentially? No thanks. I don't think they
should be imposing their will upon software consumers, actually I think
it should be the other way around. I hope that some day this world will
be Microsoft-free and Adobe-free -- just as it is now virtually
RealMedia-free although there was a time some 10-15 years ago when it
seemed that RealAudio and RealVideo were here to stay.
I also think, that major changes in applications (here are especially
kde,
gnome, Openoffice.org in my mind) should also beeing transferred to
debian/stable when they are running stable enough or the current
versions are
out-of-state-of-the-art. Mentioning KDE (just as an example), IMO 2
years of
waiting is a likttle bit too long, as a) every distribution has
already KDE4
since a long time, b) KDE4 was running for a long, long time very
stable and
c) KDE3 was already for a long long time much obsolete. (the same
things are
at OpenOffice.org-2.4.1 from stable- obsolete, unmodern, bad usable
due to
obsolete/worse import/export filters)
Those filters being forced upon us by commercial entities such as Adobe
or Microsoft, who are, again, driven by purely commercial interests.
When you deal with a profit-oriented entity, newer is not necessarily
better -- in fact, it rarely is. Newer is just more profitable:
profitable for them. That's what makes them tick. Forget progress,
forget development, forget the joy of a work well done. Even if they
(occasionally) improve a product, don't be fooled -- their only
motivation is that it may potentially sell better.
Which is perfectly OK. Good for them!
What I don't get is -- why in the world should some corporation's
profit matter *to me or to you*?
Please try to understand my extensions (and do not blame me, I am
using
testing for myself), but I think stable-users should not to be forced
to
choose between obsolete/not working applications or update the whole
system.
There should be better way (without dealing with apt-pinning or
similar), my
idea and suggestion is, just to transfer necessary newer versions
(and hand-
picked) of libs and applications to stable. But that would require
the change
of the debian policies (and of course the agreement of users,
developers and
ftp-masters).
I like -- actually, love, as Barry White would say, -- Debian "just the
way it is". My approach to Debian took some time. After a brief
experience with Mandriva, and a year of OpenSuSE, with superficial
interludes of ubuntu, I finally arrived at a distribution that best
suits my character, my principles, and my ethics. My path was not
light-hearted, nor was my final choice. I hope that makes it easier to
understand why I don't want Debian to change too much. There are
literally tons of other distros to choose from, many of them are
updated frequently, some are even rolling distributions. And, of
course, there's the final beauty of GNU/Linux: if none of the available
distros satisfies you, you may roll up your sleeves and build your own.
It's not that there are prohibitive EULAs or anything: all the source
code is freely available!
I will be pleased if my suggestion is worth to start a discussion of
it.
Consider my reply as part of that discussion. If I seem harsh, I
apologize. I'm just very passionate about my beloved distro, that's all.
Thank you very much for reading this and all the work in the best
distribution
ever.
Happy hacking!
Hans-J. Ullrich
I hereby join you in sending my warmest thanks to all the ~1000 Debian
developers/maintainers/staff who made Squeeze possible. We love you
guys (even when our video drivers lock up and when our kernels panic,
we still love you)!
--
Cheerio,
Klistvud
http://bufferoverflow.tiddlyspot.com
Certifiable Loonix User #481801 Please reply to the list, not to
me.
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