also sprach Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> [2009.08.08.1500 +0200]:
> They are sticking to that promise. Of all the derivative
> distributions out there, Ubuntu is the only one that actively, as
> a matter of policy, does contribute back bugreports and patches.
They contribute, but they're far from the only one.
There are distributions that are so tightly integrated with Debian
that we don't really notice their development, yet they are
their own distributions: Quantian, Skolelinux, and numerous
administration- and/or security-specialised derivatives, like grml,
to name but a few. Those are all targetted products, like Ubuntu
targets the desktop, and aims for large numbers of users.
And there are distros out there who "steal" from us, but we don't
care because we don't notice them either.
It's the quantity, success, and maybe other ideological factors that
make us expect too much from Ubuntu, namely to give back /more/ even
though we don't make it easy for downstreams to give back. This puts
the ball into our court but does not make Ubuntu a perfect player.
There's a lot in Ubuntu that annoys us, from hyperbole to
quality-issues, and Ubuntu are too radical about change for us to
follow blindly, thus the resistance.
But Ubuntu needs Debian, and they need Debian faster because we're
holding them back — after all, they are not a (one-time) fork.
There's a chance in that for us: we can improve Debian all along,
and if we do it right, we can improve Debian with Canonical
resources.
But I don't think the lock-step freeze cycle is the right way
forward, or that Ubuntu has the manpower, direction, or overview to
support such a cadence.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@d.o> Related projects:
: :' : proud Debian developer http://debiansystem.info
`. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduck http://vcs-pkg.org
`- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
* Overfiend came out of the womb complaining.
-- #debian-devel
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