Package: debian-www Severity: minor This report is about the same sentence as the one discussed in #468765. I'm starting a new report because #468765 was closed (apparently by error) and to show the summary below prominently (the first report got long). I also propose an alternative solution.
--- Summary According to http://www.us.debian.org/News/2008/20080229 One year after the release of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 alias 'etch' and nearly three years after the release of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 alias 'sarge' the security support for the old distribution (3.1 alias 'sarge') is coming to an end next month. The Debian project is proud to be able to support its old distribution for such a long time and even for one year after a new version has been released. The last sentence is confusing or doubtful. --- Discussions Frank Lichtenheld requested to discuss the topic on a mailing list. I started by asking the security team whether it was proud of the duration of oldstable's security support in http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2008/03/msg00009.html There was no answer from the security team, however Joerg Jaspert in http://lists.debian.org/debian-security/2008/03/msg00039.html and Don Armstrong in http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2008/03/msg00096.html each indicated more or less clearly that they were proud of it. MJ Ray stated in http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2008/03/msg00101.html that he was not proud of it. --- So it's not clear how proud the project is, but I am not willing to ask debian-project since just the discussion on debian-security was awfully noisy and time-consuming. As I wrote at the beginning, I consider that being useless to users is a good enough reason to remove the sentence. Since the discussions suggest that it is also wrong/inaccurate, I still recommend to remove it. However, the discussions also showed that several people like the sentence, so I'm not sure it will go. Therefore, I now ask to either remove the sentence or clarify/fix it. It's hard to make sense of the sentence, but after looking at it for a minute, the most likely meaning IMO is (splitting the sentence in two): The Debian project is proud to be able to support its stable distribution. The Debian project is also proud of being able to support oldstable for one year after a new version has been released. If this isn't the real meaning, please clarify. If it is, please fix it (at least removing the first sentence of my rewrite). The rewrite removes the "for such a long time". MJ Ray suggested another phrasing which also removes it: The Debian project is proud of its security team volunteers' support of 3.1 for a year after the release of the next version. This assumes that the pride expressed comes from the volunteer nature of security support. I agree that this is a likely meaning, considering various interventions in #468765 and the debian-security thread. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]