While I understand that you're excited about new features and bug fixes you should hold your horses and wait until upstream deems their software ready (by issuing a release).
Read the open letter here: https://do-not-ship.it/
@devrtz yeah I've seen a few nightly flatpaks. So if people want the latest they should follow the steps to build the development version to test and they are fully in control of the process, not some community packager.
In #debian (and #pureos) packages are uploaded to the unstable (or landing) suite and usually migrate after a few days to testing (or byzantium) suites unless migration is blocked due to some breaking bug.
You could enable those suites in your /etc/apt/sources if you want to get updates a few days before the "general public". But you also might end up getting some bugs earlier as well, so it's double-edged sword.
For more experimental stuff there is also the experimental (or octarine) suite.
One word of warning:
You should know what you're doing when altering your apt sources. Otherwise you can end up with a Frankendebian -> https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
@dean
As both an upstream developer for #gnome #calls and a package maintainer for let me share my (ideal) workflow:
- Start hacking on Feature/Bug X
- Open (WIP/Draft) MR
- Hack some more
- Once it's ready for review unWIP/undraft it
- Fix issues that crop up during review until everyone is happy
- Test drive it for a bit
- Merge
- Repeat for Feature/Bug Y
- Make release
- Update the package and upload it
@dean
TL;DR
As a user if you really want to, you can certainly test things out (and feedback on MRs is welcome!)
But as far as distributions are concerned: Please #donotship WIP patches to your users without consent.
@devrtz @dean A user can do whatever he wants with his device.
And sure there can be leading/bleeding/breaking edge distros.
But distros should warn their users what they are in for when selecting their distro. So that users make an informed choice.
A distro shipping unfinished WIP work in core packages without warning users is reckless to say the least.
@dean
At least for the distributions I'm involved in there are no (automatic) "nightly" builds (of unreleased upstream software).
If a project builds distro packages in their CI, you can of course grab and install those. But you have to go hunting for it.
Flatpak developers sometimes/often(?) ship nightly, f.e. org.gnome.Calendar.Devel
so if you use flatpak this might be an option and should still be relatively safe (in terms of breakage).