"Jesús M. Navarro" <jesus.nava...@undominio.net> writes: > Hi, Ben: > > On Thursday 22 July 2010 08:09:44 Ben Finney wrote: > > Which of the above uses of “stable” refers to stability (“slow rate > > of change”), and which refers to reliability (“high likelihood of > > working when needed”)? Too many conversations conflate the two, and > > in this case I think the distinction is important. > > Why?
Because they are quite separate descriptors, and unless we keep them distinct in conversation we'll have to re-hash the “system Foo is unstable because it frequently doesn't work”, “no, it's stable because it changes slowly” misunderstandings. > With my user hat on the only stability I care of is "it ain't break". By that description, then, you are seeking reliability. Debian's testing process is, at least in part, designed to address reliability by giving a chance for bugs in programs and in integration of packages to be shaken out. I was asking whether Russ meant this connotation, or whether he's actually talking about rate of change (which is closer to the proper meaning of “stable”). Debian's “stable” suite is quite famously stable: it changes only a few times a year. There are indeed a great many users of Debian who want stability, even if it means a loss of reliability. They choose Debian precisely because they can deploy it, set it to receive updates, and know it will change only rarely and in very specific circumstances; not even for most bug fixes. Stability and reliability are partly correlated, but only partly. Hence it's good to keep the two distinct when discussing how to please users. -- \ “I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any | `\ view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and | _o__) opposite view.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87vd876coj....@benfinney.id.au
