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