The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
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Re: Modest proposal for successful releases

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think this means too much of the
year is spent in testing.

I think two releases a year is pretty good, really.  Testing isn't easy,
and it tends not to be as rewarding as development, in all candor. 
Testing means not changing things.  My impression is, testing and not
making changes are -HARD-.  Development takes concentration, but it
doesn't take the same kind of discipline that not making changes does.

I'd like to see something like:

month 1: develop
month 2: develop
month 3: develop
month 4: develop and dig up preliminary list of beta testers
month 5: develop, and make beta release at end of month
month 6: make absolutely minimal bug-fix changes, and release to public

...or if you really want three releases in a year:

month 1: develop
month 2: develop and dig up preliminary list of beta testers
month 3: develop, and make beta release at end of month
month 4: make absolutely minimal bug-fix changes, and release to public

I think the idea of a developer-testing period is a good one, but I'm
not sure we can (all) stick to it.  I believe if we simply had a formal
beta period, that'd be a great step forward.

I think it might make sense to add a message like this to the install
process:

	Send mail to wantbeta@debian.org if you're interested in
	becoming a debian beta tester.

The thing is, what does it really mean to be a debian beta tester? 
People can get unstable stuff all the time.  It seems like all
committment and no benefit to the tester - except perhaps pride in being
a test pilot.  There's no "early access" like with software companies.

Brian C. White wrote:
> 
> I can't believe I'm getting involved in this again...
> 
> What I would suggest, for a 3 month release schedule is the following:
> 
> Month 0:  ("frozen" period of previous release)
>  - decisions about what features are to go into the following release
>  - anything not finished for the previous release can be started
> 
> Month 1:
>  - free-for-all:  any and all upgrades/new-packages/development/etc.
> 
> Month 2:
>  - internal "developer" testing:  small upgrades, new non-essential
>    packages, minor policy changes
>  - big packages (X, Passwd, Tex, dpkg & friends, etc) are to have no
>    major changes/releases
>  - base disks being worked on
> 
> Month 3:  "frozen"
>  - external "user" testing:  bug fixes only!  no new code!
>  - base disks done and undergoing necessary updates/fixes
> 
> Release:
>  - a nice, stable system with 2 months of testing behind it.
> 
> To me, the primary goal behind "stable" is stability.  Period.  Cutting
> edge, latest packages, new features, etc. are all secondary.  If those
> are your primary concern, then you should be using the "unstable" tree.
> 
>                                           Brian
>                                  ( bcwhite@verisim.com )
> 
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