Bug#904302: That's a free software issue!
Anonymous writes ("Bug#904302: That's a free software issue!"):
> If Debian want patches it has to support this process with tools. The
> attitude Debian owns all source packages is wrong. Sharing source
> packages among different vendors is more efficient. Different patch
> series may be the best solution in some cases.
I do agree with the underlying ideology behind these ideas. I think
code sharing between different distros in the Debianish ecosystem is
very important and I certainly don't think that `Debian owns all
source packages', whatever that means.
Indeed, in my technical Debian work I am writing tools which I hope
will support people who want to diverge from Debian, and retain and
carry those divergences in the long term. I have long been frustrated
that it is too difficult to do this.
The problem I have with the vendor series feature is narrower and more
technical. For all the reasons I and others have explained, I think
the vendor series feature is a very poor way to support divergence and
diversity. It does more harm than good.
The background to this is that I think that Debian source packages,
which I designed in the mid 1990s and which were since extended with
`3.0 (quilt)' [1], are a clumsy system which has been obsoleted by the
new generation of distributed version control systems, especially git.
.dsc format source packages are bad enough for the newcomer to Debian,
without the very weird vendor patch series feature. And the vendor
patch series feature makes migration to better source code management
tools harder.
So in summary I think the real way to promote divergence by Debian's
derivatives, and code sharing amongst derivatives, is to use to the
full the features of very capable modern revision control systems.
TBH I don't expect this to convince you. And I found many of your
comments rather overblown. It would be helpful if you could avoid
wild accusations.
But, if you really want to help promote software freedom for Debian's
derivatives and users, by addressing issues to do with package source
code management tooling: please consider trying out dgit and maybe
suggesting it to Debian's downstreams as a way to get the source code
from Debian.
Please also consider advocating that Debian maintainers should use
dgit for their uploads. If you're very keen you could come and help
out with work on making git-debrebase become a useful tool for
downstreams.
Ian.
[1] To be clear, although I have a lot of criticisms of `3.0 (quilt)',
it is much better than what was being widely done in Debian
beforehand.
Reply to: