Debian is renowned for the “when it’s ready” release cycle. Moan all you want, but it won’t be released until it’s really ready. This argument wouldn’t hold any water if it weren’t also true that Debian is remarkably stable, well-managed, versatile, broad, etc. etc. If the “ready” release were a pile of camel pucky, who would care about Debian? The polish and professionalism managed by a huge group of incredibly diverse and far-flung volunteers whose only common trait is a “social contract” is awe-inspiring. No wonder so many distros use it as a base.
Let us now consider Fedora Core. Released regularly and with packages being changed and added at breakneck speed, it breaks stuff. People don’t run the most recent core in production for good reason. Still, it has important selling points: it’s relevant now. Real and obvious progress can be seen. It is a positive force in Linux development.
Consider next Theo de Raadt’s child, OpenBSD. Every six months we see a new release, and yet there’s been only one remote exploit found in the past eight years. Admittedly the sights are set lower in terms of functionality and usability, but OpenBSD makes for one hell of a firewall, file server, mail server, … the list goes on.
Let us consider the dev team headed by Bush and Cheney. Let us consider their upcoming release, Iraq. Do we really believe that Bush/Cheney have a solid “social contract” that will produce a Debianesque release? Do we really believe that real and obvious progress is being made in Iraq? Do we really believe that, expectations lowered, this release will have improved security implications?
It is clear that Iraq is becoming more sectarian and that the violence shows no sign of stopping. Here at home, a man with a fake Mexican ID can gain entry to the Department of Homeland Security. Soldiers are beheaded. More are blown up. Civilians are murdered in Haditha and elsewhere…. the list goes on.
Just release it. It will have lots of bugs and need extensive patching. You might even need a revision release. Why not do a release every six months? Your current release schedule and dev team seem to have pulled the worst from every camp. You’ve got Debian’s pace, Fedora’s bugs and Theo de Raadt’s personality in Cheney (and others). Set a timetable. Please. The alternative is a non-free operating system.
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