Re: Is Ubuntu a debian derivative or is it a fork?

[Adeodato Simó <adeodato@debian.org>]

* Petter Reinholdtsen [Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:01:58 +0200]:
> [Daniel Holbach]

  Hello Petter, Daniel, let me pop in. It's my intention to be
  constructive.

> I believe we are discussing how to keep the packages in Debian and
> Ubuntu as synchronized as possible,

  Specifically, packages in universe.

>    and also encourage people to try to find a DD
>    sponsor to upload the packages both into Debian and into Ubuntu.

  This will work great if the person has a strong interest both in
  Debian and in Ubuntu. I have very limited knowledge of the MOTU
  effort, but I think it is increasingly gaining collaborators that do
  not have a Debian background, and who start in the packaging world
  directly via Ubuntu. For them, finding a Debian sponsor and uploading
  to our archive may be: (a) completely uninteresting, (b) a painful
  experience. Plus it may not be the ideal situation for Debian either,
  since uploading a package should imply that bug reports will be taken
  care of, and other Debian specific bits.

  For these cases, I believe a co-maintainership scenario would be
  really best (as Peter mentioned under "Group maintenance"): a Debian
  person and an Ubuntu person work together, each taking care of the
  issues specific to their distribution (e.g. bugs), but on the
  packaging side they work as closely as possible: common VCS repository
  and whatever.

  But, alas, there will not always be an interested DD for each new
  package that Ubuntu/universe gets, and the difficulty to find a
  sponsor, specially for non-experienced packagers, doesn't help here
  either (correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that getting a sponsored
  upload to universe happens faster and more easily than a sponsored
  upload to sid).

  For that reason, it could make sanse to keep a list of packages that
  exist in Ubuntu but not in Debian. This could be a Wiki page, or
  (perhaps even makes more sense) in the RFP/ITP itself, as in (please
  give feedback on this):

    - Ubuntu packagers are encouraged to file a RFP/ITP bug against wnnp
      on bugs.debian.org for each new package they upload

    - an ITP is filed if they intend to search a for a Debian sponsor
      and maintain the Debian package themselves, otherwise a RFP is
      submitted

    - these ITPs and RFPs carry somewhere in the subject the "[Ubuntu]" (*)
      string, so that the set of packages in Ubuntu and not in Debian
      can be easily found.

      (*) Or a generic label could be used, e.g. "[from-derived-dist]".


  Cheers,

-- 
Adeodato Simó
    EM: asp16 [ykwim] alu.ua.es | PK: DA6AE621
 
Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut.
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