Re: Official Debian image request: Google Compute Engine (was: Re: Please let's not talk about "clouds")

Hi Lucas,

Sorry for the slow response - my week of work travel interfered more with this thread than anticipated. Responses below.

On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 5:54 AM, Lucas Nussbaum <leader@debian.org> wrote:

First, Nothing below is a definitive answer, either positive or negative.
As you know, we don't have clear guidelines/policies for that question.
I'm trying to get a better understanding first, and I'm open to changing
my mind. :)

Right, I realize this is a new situation for Debian.

There are two different questions in your email, even if it's not
explicitely stated: naming that image "Debian image", and naming that
image "official Debian image".

Correct.

Given the amount of customization you describe, my current feeling is
that naming that image "Debian image" should be approved, and even more
after you switch to using a Debian-provided kernel.

Great. This is what we're planning to do for now in our May 2013 announcements, documentation, etc. Our most important near-term naming goal is that the image can appropriately be called Debian, so that Debian support forums only get asked to support things which are reasonable for them to support.

As a #debian channel operator myself, I know how inappropriate "based on Debian" support requests are. :) From my experience doing #debian support, I think this will work out as well for the Google Compute Engine images as for the Amazon EC2 images. Plenty of people use other kernels on Debian while remaining fully supportable otherwise, but even that difference won't remain long-term.

Now, "official Debian image". I don't think that for EC2, "official" has
been explicitely defined. It could mean "generated and provided by
Debian", "recognized by Debian as being 'pure'", but also "part of the
list of default images on GCE" (that would be "official" from the GCE
POV, not from the Debian POV).

Could you clarify what you are aiming for?

This will be official from Google's perspective quite soon. We consider it worth addressing the obstacles preventing Debian from considering it official, but this will take longer than the week before Wheezy's release. Doing it properly will require further collaboration within Google and with Debian over the months ahead.

- Jimmy