3.0

[Derek Neighbors]

> Thanks.  I am quite thrilled that I never deleted my Debian partition
> so I will try this out later today.  Is there any reason that these
> packages are not thrown into the unstable branch?

Yes.  Various reasons.  Somethings just arent free and so the .deb is
merely packaging a binary (so this kind of thing will never be part of
Deb (i think the flash thing is an example of that).

Debian packaging is very precise and has lots of rules (that is what
makes them so darn solid and flexible) and some complex things like KDE
and OpenOffice and X are exteremly complex programs so peopel will
create 'unofficial' versions that work perfectly fine but are not
following the guidelines of 'true' Debian packaging so they wait until
they are done right by the maintainers until they include them.

Also in the case of KDE and X these are MAJOR upgrades that can foul an
entire system if done wrong.  While they call it unstable, many
developers (like me) rely on it for daily use and would be pretty pissed
if completely beta stuff that was system critical was dumped on me.  So
generally on larger packages they build them and put them on the
maintainers site, then the 'daring can try them out' and give feedback. 
If lots of good feedback is giving the maintainer will put in Unstable.

I suggest if the package IS in Debian and you want the newest version
hunt down its maintainers website you will probalby find the versoin you
want there begging to be beat on before it goes into sid. :)  I know KDE
and X both are like that.  Also, KDE and X both have their own lists on
debian.

> I had searched through questions asking for KDE3 .deb files in Usenet,
> but none of the answers suggested the above site.  Is this just a
> little know secret?

See above on how to get in on the secrets. :)

-Derek