Mara does not resolve ncs.gov

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Sam Trenholme (strenholme.usenet at gmail.com):

> * Debian makes it easy to update from one stable release to the next;
> people using Etch can (in theory) easily update to Lenny.

It's actually a key part of each Debian release manager's job to make
sure that the stable -> stable migration _does_ work smoothly.  The 
release of that new "stable" branch isn't supposed to occur until that
has been verified to be the case, among other requirements.  (Debian
sysadmins should be doing resyncs to the package mirrors every week or
two, anyway.  So, the stable -> stable switchover happens effectively
automatically, the only noticeable difference from other package updates
being more new packages downloaded than usual.  It's not uncommon to 
hear a sysadmin say he/she was unaware it happened until days or weeks
later, in fact.  Local customisations get reapplied, daemons stop and
then restart with the new versions, and there's essentially zero
downtime: It's a live-production upgrade.)

This is a different way of thinking (and of maintaining systems) from 
what applies with most other distros, and very commonly misunderstood.

The Debian Project (for whom I don't speak) does very little to clarify
the situation:  Part of the reason, I'd speculate, is that most of
Debian's 1000+ developers simply don't care about the Stable branch in
the first place, as they don't run it.