I hope that something will come of this.
To be honest the ideal for me would simply be a completion of the first "Official 4.3.2" (v3) which has been very stable for a year for me, and reportedly others.
As far as I know it offers just what was promised: conservative main line traditional puppy, with updates, running on a range of old and new hardware, bugfixed, stable, using the official and popular kernel versions.
The only thing lacking as far as I remember it was that xvesa needed fixing.Well Barry mentioned I could release a 4.3.2 bug fix release and doing so will buy some time for 5 series to be released in about 5 weeks, At this point in time that is what I'm prepared to do and have started. I'll spend maybe 1-2 days on this and I won't be taking over 4 series right now but I'll build a 4.3.2 bug release based on 4.3.1.
It seems that if it could just be "completed". we'd have just what is being asked here.
The problem is that the desire to "improve" gradually sneaks in over the desire to correct bugs, and off we go into a new kernel, and new applications, and new support libraries, new browsers and effectively, a new puplet. Yet another doggy with new fleas.
It's understandable, fixing bugs isn't glamorous and always suggests newer more exciting apps. But frankly new Firefox or Opera, or alternate app pups are a dime a dozen. I know -- I wrote one myself a while back.
Why a 4.3.x bugfix edition? I don't want a new puppy I gotta house train to fit in again. I work at my job every day with Puppy Linux, and my wife does as well, I want a well mannered standard dog, with a recent flea bath, and all shots.
There's always a CD RW available for some alternative puplet if the urge arises to experiment. But the HD is always going to aim grub first at a 4 series puppy, day in, day out.