On the other hand "unstable" is way too unstable when you need a reliable environment in my experience. Packages breaking randomly etc... Completely expected of course, but I can't take that bet on a work computer for instance.
So as far as I'm concerned on the desktop "debian testing" is the one true debian. I don't even try to install stable first anymore since I'm certain I'll end up moving to testing eventually, I directly ask the setup to use the testing repos.
That's not my experience at all. Which packages have you had breaking randomly?
Of course what everyone wants is something with all the advantages of a rolling release but without the disadvantages. Ie, always have the latest version of everything, but without anything breaking in ways that affect me.
I don't know what the practical breakage situation is, so I don't know if renaming and repositioning unstable would make more sense than doing it with testing.
My point is that it would be good for non-expert end users who like Debian's community image and who want security support to have a Debian release channel that provides fresher software with security support than stable.
If you haven't tried it, give it a shot. You may be surprised.
That was the risk I accepted. That's what unstable is for. And you need somewhere like that to find those bugs.
But that's what you need to be able to handle if you run unstable. So I never recommend it to anyone; if anything I warn people off. If you can't make do with stable+backports, try testing. But don't try unstable unless you know enough about it to understand why you shouldn't, and still want to anyway.
Definitely don't run unstable because someone on the internet told you it was a great way to get up-to-date packages.
But "have you spent the time evaluating it?" is beside the point. My point is that it would be positive to have a Debian release channel with fresh software with 1) explicit security support and 2) naming with positive connotations so that fewer people who don't need to use out-of-date "stable" used "stable" because it is the Debian release channel with the most positive-connotation name.
Asking each user individually to go against the framing of negative-connotation naming ("testing", "unstable") to get empirical data of what the actual level of breakage is wasteful. If "unstable" works so well, it shouldn't be called "unstable". Calling it "unstable" but telling people it's the solution to whatever is wrong with "stable" is a set-up for a blame-the-user excuse if something goes wrong.
What you are asking is basically to switch to a rolling cycle with guaranteed support. This is a huge change and also don't account for the fact that many people choose Debian stable specifically because of it's non-rolling cycle...
* It's generally unpleasant for a user to know their problem has been fixed but they don't get access to the fix in a long time.
* Users using old software when they don't need to has network effects that give rise to negative externalities. See my other top-level reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14580042
> don't account for the fact that many people choose Debian stable specifically because of it's non-rolling cycle
My suggestion is based on the premise that there are users who choose or would like to choose Debian because of its community distro brand equity and not because Debian stable has old software. Also note that I suggested a change in the framing of testing and didn't suggest stable be dropped.
The reason it's called "testing" is because it's a branch of Debian that's "in testing for stable". IIRC packages have to be 2 weeks in unstable without bugs before migrating to testing.
So it's explicitly not a bleeding edge release, but a preparation release for the next stable, which is why testing since late-2016 or so hasn't been getting any new major releases, it's been undergoing release prep.
Maybe there should be a sixth branch of Debian between unstable and testing that doesn't slow down the migration of packages bug-free for 2 weeks from unstable around release, but that seems like a lot of maintenance burden to impose on Debian.