The "Lets find more ways to waste time" Email

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006, Benjamin Seidenberg wrote:
> So I was thinking at random, and I somehow thought about how many
> people/teams name each debian release in the changelog, and thought:

Like I do? :-)

> "Gee, why don't we do that?" While this thought is most likely the

I have been doing that for a while, *when* the release deserves it...

> 1.) Most importantly: Do you guys think we should proceed in exploring
> this idea?

IMHO implied on all stuff below.

Name it intelligently, no crass words, always be witty.  It is not a pet or
a person: releases often have small sentence (or sentence fragments) as
names such as:

	The "I should have left it well enough alone" release.

Don't name it *unless* there is something special to be said of the release
(or of stuff thet led to the release).  Overuse kills the magic.

No pet names.  Calling something "wicked hedgehog", or "gray spinny wombat"
works for the kernel, but seems rather pointless for Debian package
releases.

> 2.) If so, how should we name the release? Should it be the one who
> uploads (Automatic objection to this from me until Ganneff and Elmo
> finish my application), the one who starts the new changelog entry, or
> just whenever a name comes around? Maybe decide on-list on the next name?

A few ideas:

Just commit it to the changelog, or propose it to the ML.  The golden rule
is: you cannot modify something someone commited unless you have an even
wittier one, OR if it breaks a rule.  If a fight ensues, that release may
not receive a name at all.

Ah, and you can only commit a release name if you also commit a bug fix or
major enhancement in a time window of 15 minutes before or after the "naming
the release" commit :-)

> 5.) Profit

Someone compiled a list of all "The.*release" in changelogs, look for it,
read and LOL.  I had a field day reading it (and finding some of my release
namings in there!).

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh