Quoting Tobias Bernard (2019-03-20 14:10:18)
To add my perspective:
[ snipped nice long-term vision of both stable and timely updated ]
Regarding the current choice between Debian stable and testing: We can't go with Debian stable, unless we find a way to get up-to-date versions of GNOME and all its dependecies on top of that. I have a hunch that this isn't easily possible, but it's hardly my area of expertise :)
Correct, that isn't possible today.
Maybe possible within 6 months - but by the time we know for certain it is likely too late to hit the breaks (should we want that by then - when new new must-have usability or feature improvement may be at hand or just around the corner).
Continuing with Debian testing seems like the more sustainable route short-term, though we still need to figure out how to get up-to-date GNOME during freeze periods, such as the current one.
So in your opinion, short term we need _less_ stability than syncing from Debian testing offers during Debian freeze.
Makes (some) sense, but unfortunately outside our options:
Assuming we could switch to track Debian unstable, that would also be affected by the freeze.
Assuming we could switch to track Debian unstable+experimental, we would have no way to distinguish in-experimental-because-unstable-is-occupied-by-the-freeze packages from in-experimental-because-of-horrible-experiments packages.
We cannot selectively track pet packages from unstable or experimental - see https://tracker.pureos.net/T724#13610
Our options short-term are therefore limited to these:
* continue track testing * switch to track stable
Medium-term - after developing infrastructure and/or hiring and getting up to speed more manpower - there may be more options to choose from.
Now we can discuss what to actually do now , and we can discuss what to start ramping up for attempting to maybe do in future.
We cannot discuss what to do now other than "nothing" or "slow down".
Since other Debian-based distributions, such as Ubuntu are going to do this as well, it seems at least theoretically doable.
Yes, given enough resources (engineering, hands, and time), anything is possible!
[ snipped vision/wish about abandoning Debian ]
- Jonas