I blogged about why #Debian is the way it is.
17 comments
@penguin42 @liw I think the missing piece here is that Debian does assign versions, but they only appear as such in the archive once the release is actually official as opposed to being in preparation. @cjwatson @penguin42 I don't remember all the details, and I couldn't find links to discussions back then, but my memory claims that the idea was that code names are less likely to be misunderstood as finished releases. The later development of the archive pool structure and `dists` directory handle this betterer. @penguin42 @liw I've been a Debian developer for 22 years and I still have to look up the numbers when I need them. @cjwatson @penguin42 @liw on the flip side I can give you the numbers but I usually have no idea how to order buster, bullseye and bookworm. @penguin42 @liw A nick name is not a fixed release. It was mainly to avoid pre-mature CDs and such ... You would be having a hard time selling "Debian Buzz", or at least that made it clear to the user that it wasn't Debian 1.1 or whatever. @liw Interesting, thanks! FYI: there is a small typo: "An obviously solution" -> "An obvious solution" @liw "that consists only of free and open source software" -- a goal that Debian got rid of. 😠 @liw It very much did, and it isn't the silly "everything is software" shtick anymore (wrt to the GFDL). Debian now installs non-free software automatically without the users consent. "From Debian 12, the installer will automatically check for needed firmware blobs and add them as required. If you would prefer it not to, add ..." @amszmidt Right. I assumed that was you meant. You're intentionally distorting the situation, like a troll. I have no tolerance for that. Bye. @liw great read! even for someone who is familiar with the most of the ideas behind the project. @ilmari I don't think the details are relevant to my blog post, so I'm not going to discuss them here, sorry. |
@liw debian is the way it is because it isn't the way it isn't. by comparing the way it is against the way it isn't it can work out the way it ought to be.