I agree that booth have advantages and disadvantages.
What makes me the most "sad" when talking about a stable distribution (not
debian since I never used it long enough), is the idea of not getting things
repaired until the new version is out.
Take this as an example. Software ABC has an issue, but not a security issue,
let's say a user issue, like Pencil Animation (available on the Trisquel
Repositories) that won't let us export the work since it crashes. You have 2
kinds of distributions handling the problem, is this is what happens (if the
development is active of course):
Stable Distribution (Like Ubuntu):
- Bug is reported
- Problem is solved (but some times not reported upstream)
- Solution will be provided in the next version of Ubuntu.
Stable Distributions Based on... (Like Trisquel based on Ubuntu)
- Same steps as Ubuntu
- Solution will be provided in the next version (+ mostly 6 months on this
case)
Rolling Distribution:
- Bug is Reported
- Solution is/can be found, and a patch is applied
-- Patch is applied to the upstream project until a new version is out
-- Patch is applied to the current version as a "-2" version (like 1.0.1-2)
And this is why I mostly prefer the rolling model. Not because of the latest
and greatest, but mostly because those problems take less time to be correct,
and are more in agree and respect of the creator's work since the patch is
applied directly to the main project and not to the package itself.
Now, I know that we have some upsides and some downsides, but a mix of the 2
could be very good.
As an example. I mostly don't care if (for example), Gnome Shell on Arch
Linux is 3.4 (almost 3.6) and Gnome Shell on Trisquel is still 3.0... but why
all the bugs ? (I am taking Trisquel as an example and I know the hard work
that Ruben already has but this is just a pure example nothing more). I can
take another example, I reported, weeks ago when I was still using Ubuntu, a
bug about the megadrive emulator that had dependencies problems, and when we
installed it, apt-get asked to remove the Kernel (how usual is that in
Ubuntu...) so I talked about a possible solution, the problem was solved my
someone else, and I was happy :D The problem was that the patch will only
appear on the 12.10 Version... and it was on middle on June (if I remember
right), so I had to wait until October to play megadrive games on this
emulator.
Arch Linux had the great idea to make the Testing and Core/Extra/Community
repositories in a separate camp, like this we can only use the stable,
already tested, and patched packages available... What could happen ? Well,
the usual... the package is working great, but it isn't compatible with the
new package that came out (like this problem with Xorg and almost every DE
out there).. So what could be the solution ? Easy, wait until the DE's are
updated, and then, once again, this wouldn't be a Rolling Distribution
anymore..
So for this case I agree with the grey area. And to be honest, I would be
very happy to put my hands in the "dirt" if Ruben decided to go for a "Only
LTS" version, with is own update system completely different from Ubuntu but
based upon the same core. Like this we could continue to update Abrowser when
it is necessary, and when it is ready, with the final goal of having a
beautiful, and free, mix of Debian and Ubuntu (+ Arch Linux), taking the best
of everyone. I'm even pretty sure a lot of people would come just to see how
it works and that even may inspire other people :D
(Once again sorry for the long text).
