Re: Need for launchpad
Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> writes:
> On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 03:12:33PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
>> Actually, upstream maintainers have no voice before the technical
>> committee, which exists to resolve disputes between Debian developers,
>> not between Debian developers and outsiders.
>
> Indeed. And likewise, we have absolutely no control over what Ubuntu
> chooses to distribute, either.
Not absolutely none. They must comply with the licenses. :)
The objection from me, at least, and many others, has been that Ubuntu
is *claiming* to cooperate with us, while really not doing so very
well at all, and rebuffing attempts to encourage a more useful form of
cooperation.
>> The question here is *NOT* whether Ubuntu has good patches, but
>> whether they contribute back, via the BTS, patches which are relevant
>> to the Debian upstream.
>
> Actually, Manoj raised the issue of not wanting his name on packages
> being modified by a committee since bugs may harm his reputation.
Sorry, I muddled the two separate issues badly.
One issue is the reluctance of Ubuntu to adopt the policy of
submitting all relevant patches to the Debian BTS.
The second issue is the Ubuntu practice of labelling packages with the
Debian maintainers, and not labelling them with a suitable
Ubuntu-specific address.
The second issue, in the form Manoj raised it, is solved by saying
"this package came from the one Manoj maintains, and we have changed
it in thus-and-such ways." This preserves the attribution of credit,
while avoiding the tarnishing of reputation.
> I have in the past had my reputation harmed by people who screwed up
> e2fsprogs at various distributions.
I think this is not quite true. In any case, my recollection was that
the bad cooperation was a two-way street, with you being extremely
reluctant to acknowledge the concerns and needs of distributions, and
on the other side, distributions disregarding your requests about how
the package should be modified or installed.
> So if that's our formal distribution of power between our upstreams
> and our Debian Developers, why are we complaining about how Ubuntu
> treats us?
I would be happy to agree that Debian did not cooperate well with you
with respect to the past history of e2fsprogs.
Ubuntu claims to cooperate well with Debian. That's the problem.
Thomas
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