| > This creates something that we in Debian call a "FrankenDebian" which results in system updates becoming unpredictable [2]. I believe this comment shows how a condescending communication style in FLOSS hurts goodwill and clogs the virtuous cycle of enthusiasm that fuels FLOSS. Here's something that's true: Debian Jessie ships a LTS Firefox for which it grants an exception to its strict package security update policy. That LTS Firefox version has its own support schedule, and its own arch support policy. Both of those skew from Debian's own policy and timeline. This means that one of the two most popular browsers on Debian doesn't provide the same ARM support that Debian claims to support on its website. It also means that Debian updates Firefox on stable (as well as Chromium on stable) whole cloth. It doesn't backport security updates because Debian does not have the resources to take on such a difficult project. That means for every Debian box set up as a user desktop, the two most popular packages cannot follow the package security guidelines that the quoted Debian fan/dev would hold up as one of Debian's strengths. To be clear: when Firefox LTS released an update that worked perfectly fine on all of their supported archs, that release broke Firefox completely on Debian Jessie on ARM. In other words, you can install a Debian called "stable" on an arch they call "supported" and end up upgrading yourself into a state where an official Debian package no longer works. In short-- all Debian stable packages are potentially "FrankenDebian" for this reason, and-- worse-- for really popular and important desktop packages. Elementary logic and social skills dictate that the person I quoted should be finding common ground with Linux Mint devs. Say package maintenance is hard. Say security backports don't really scale anymore. Say random number generators are tricky to get right. Pointing out one's own failures and citing sources for the rare successes seems like a winning strategy to me. Or at least one that doesn't threaten to zap all the energy of the people one communicates with/about. You'd think a project like Debian with its myriad guidelines and processes would have at least one sentence in there like, "Don't treat others like they're teenagers loitering outside your fast-food restaurant," or, "Don't be self-righteous." Or more pointed, "Don't talk down to other distros." Is there a Debian dev here who agrees with my upshot? There's apparently this whole inculcation process to become a member, so maybe one of those sentences could be part of it. |