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

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

On Tue, May 31, 2005 at 07:47:19PM -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Tue, May 31, 2005 at 09:00:33PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> 
> > example, Python 2.4 is in sid, and I don't mind making my packages use
> > it now.  I'd appreciate any and all diffs from ubuntu folks.
> 
> I don't want to repeat the discussion about pushing patches; there's a
> perfectly reasonable one already in the list archives.  There are good
> reasons why we do this the way that we do.

A discussion, yes... perfectly reasonable, not so much :-(

Anyway, it was not my intention to beat that particular dead horse.

Want to do us Debian folks a big favor for little work?  Provide a
view of your patches sorted by maintainer, then by source package.

> After Sarge, releases, it should be pretty straightforward for someone to
> set up a script to mass-mail Debian maintainers copies of the Python
> transition patches from Ubuntu (or all of the patches, if that's really what
> they believe that Debian maintainers want).

I'd prefer wishlist bugs tagged patch when there is a patch relevant
for Debian, personally.

> You might as well ask the same question of any Debian derivative.  The
> reason that derivatives exist is because people want different things.
> In the case of Ubuntu, we outline on our website what we do differently.

I'm aware of that.  There are cases, though, where people tend to
create a difference when it's not necessary.  A common place is
graphics on the default desktop.  I don't know if Ubuntu changes
those, but I know some derivatives do, and thus have to fork some
packages.  I figure it would be easier to use /etc/alternatives to
manage those defaults, but that's just me.

> It is of course in our best interest to keep the delta manageable, and we
> try to do that.

Yes, of course.

> Indeed, for all of the gripes about submitting patches, a disappointingly
> small fraction of the patches that Ubuntu proactively submits are actually
> uploaded to Debian by the maintainer.

Out of curiousity, do you have a rough estimate of the percentage that
actually make it into Debian?  Or the percentage that are held back
with no good reason?

> In the not-so-distant future, a huge proportion of Ubuntu development will
> take place in Arch branches, with the intent of promoting more efficient
> collaboration both within Ubuntu and with Debian.

Very nice.

Looks like someone needs to write the Arch backend for darcs :-)

BTW, the baz folks could get some very neat ideas from darcs.  The
"offline mode comes free" way of working is very nice, and the
branching being easier than Arch is nice, too.

-- John