Debian 5.0 "Lenny" in June 2009?

Tuesday of this week, Debian spokesperson Alexander Reichle-Schmehl made a renewed appeal to developers and users for help in his Tolimar's blog "to help release Lenny at least in this quarter," to follow up on his previous “What you can do for ‘Lenny’” appeal on LWN.net". Soon thereafter Heise Online picked up his statement as news that Debian 5.0 was to appear by end of 2008.

This news made Debian developer Bastian Venthur bristle. Venthur, who had been charting the release-critical bugs for "Lenny," was predicting already beginning of August that Debian 5.0 would be ready neither in September nor any time in 2008 for that matter. His guess, based on comparing the critical bug rate with that of the previous Debian release, was that "Lenny" would not be ready until June of 2009.

In his blog posting Venthur was particularly critical of the casual nature in which his fellow Debian developers announced release dates and that these announcements should be more realistic and timely. To the point, he adds, "Some people might actually trust our estimation (I know this sounds silly)."