Non-"critical" bug fixes/new hardware drivers in stable releases?

[Onno Benschop]

On 12/09/07 08:24, Francois-Denis Gonthier wrote:
> On August 30, 2007 06:32:55 pm Tim Hull wrote:
>   
>> What these issues have in common is that, under current policy (which calls
>> for updates for security/data loss type issues ONLY), there is little or no
>> chance of having them fixed in the stable release.  While I can see the
>> merit of keeping changes to "stable" to a minimum, it seems like the
>> existing policy of Ubuntu (and many distributions - I'm not blaming Ubuntu
>> in particular) is leaving many users out in the cold with regards to their
>> issues until the next release.
>>
>> I can see this policy for a server or enterprise desktop (and thus the LTS
>> releases), but not a normal desktop.  For desktop users, it ends up making
>> them fix some bugs/hardware support issues themselves using the command
>> line/third-party repositories/building from source - which is something
>> that should be avoided.  Has there been any consideration to easing the
>> stable release updates policy to accommodate issues like these?
>>
>> I'm not necessarily advocating that the stable release receive every update
>> under the sun (certainly not feature-only updates), but it seems like
>> allowing more bug fixes/new drivers to enter the stable release would be
>> beneficial to many end users. I think that many users are probably turned
>> off by the "recompile, add this unsupported software, hack this code, etc
>> etc" (I know this is what always ends up pushing me away from Linux) and
>> this would go a long way towards alleviating this.
>>
>> Any comments?  I'm especially wondering what developers think of this
>> issue...
>>     
>
> Just pitching in.  I'm usually a full time lurker on the lists you participate 
> to.  I can only admire the patience with which you are trying to get your 
> point across.  I'm developing daily on Debian and Ubuntu, but I cannot be 
> considered a Ubuntu developer.
>   
Francois-Denis,

Thank you for your comments. Until I read this I had seen Tim's
contributions to this list as repeating the same thing over and over
again and me loosing interest with each subsequent post. Your message
inspired me to change that attitude and think: "Perhaps Tim is trying to
say something that I still don't understand."

Of course I have no way of judging that, but perhaps time will tell.

Thanks,

-- 
Onno Benschop

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