The common way is to reply on arch-general, so I will include that list in CC now. Thanks for the clarification. So your concern was not about using external binaries, it was about keeping to use outdated Arch programs. That's also a very good point when talking about disadvantages of the rolling release model. It seems most developers answered purely from a developer point of view more than a user one. But I read the answers again and noticed the overlord did mention both sides :) "Aaron Griffin: The biggest problem with the rolling release model is laziness - from upstream developers and Arch users. We try to stay up to date wherever possible, but some upstream developers are slow at adopting new changes. This means we need to do extra work to make their software compatible with new library versions and things of that nature. On the user end, you get people who don't regularly update their system (something we indicate as very important), and you end up with newer software and older libraries on the same system, causing breakages." So I just want to highlight that it's indeed very important to regularly update a Arch system, and it's something that should be made clear when advertising Arch, because it definitely does not fit to everyone. On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 5:22 AM, Gregory Eric Sanderson <gzou2000@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Xavier,

I tried to post an answer to your last message, but since i'm only an "observer" on the dev list I can't. So I'm transfering directly to you my answer if ever it might interest you

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gregory Eric Sanderson <gzou2000@gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 11:20 PM Subject: Re: [arch-dev-public] OS News interview To: Public mailing list for Arch Linux development <arch-dev-public@archlinux.org>

Actually, that question came from me :-)

Sorry if the question wasn't clear, I should have phrased it in a different way. Although my country officiaily has 2 languages, I live in the province that speaks almost only french, so I don't get much chances practicing my english.

The "programs that depend on older libraries who aren't on the system anymore because of an update" is actually an example that I was trying to give of a disadvantage that could occur because of the rolling release model. when I switched full-time to Arch, I din't do system upgrades very often and It happend regularly that programs would stop to work because they were linked to libraries who were updated as part of the installation of a new program. (I hardly get this problem anymore since I upgrade more regularly now)

Don't get me wrong, I love the rolling release model. But I was curious to know what the developers thought of this and if they saw any other disadvantages or "quirks" that the rolling release model brought

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Xavier <shiningxc@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 11:22 PM, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:

...

The OS News interview is up: http://www.osnews.com/story/22692/Arch_Linux_Team

Fun interview. Allan's answers are the best, I have to say :)

Some comments : - a few formatting issues. like the first reply from Thomas often misses a newline. Allan lost his A and became llan and one page.

- whats the difference between these two questions on page 5 : What part of the Arch Linux development is the most active? Where is development primarily focused for the Arch Linux team (the installation, pacman, etc)?

- about this question One of the most notable characteristics of Arch is its rolling release model, which assures users that they will always have the latest and newest version of a program available. Has this model brought any noticeable disadvantages (for example: programs that depend on older libraries who aren't on the system anymore because of an update)?

I am not sure what the question meant to hint with "programs that depend on older libraries who aren't on the system anymore because of an update" but that reminded me of several times I tried to run some binaries on Arch, and it failed because all libraries were too new. :)