During a thread about daylight savings confusion here in Sydney, Martin Barry asked the SLUG list why updates to Ubuntu packages go into a separate “updates” repository. John Ferlito suggested that I blog my answer…

I’ve never understood the ${ubuntu_release}-updates thing.

A separate repositry for security I understand due to the need to bypass mirror lag.

But anything worthy of going into ${ubuntu_release}-updates is surely worth putting straight into ${ubuntu_release} ? Or is it just me?

Post-release, that archive is never touched. It means that users get to choose how much damage they’re willing to accept: