Re: Canonical's business model
On 1/11/06, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 05:48:22PM -0200, Gustavo Franco wrote:
> > On 1/11/06, Daniel Ruoso <daniel@ruoso.com> wrote:
> > > Em Qua, 2006-01-11 às 16:48 +0100, martin f krafft escreveu:
> > > > What would you like to see?
>
> > > I think submitting bugs and patches to the BTS would already be enough.
>
> > It was already discussed[0], and there's no consensus on this idea of
> > "every Ubuntu changeset, a patch in Debian BTS" between DDs. I don't
> > remember Linspire, Progeny, ... employees doing the same thing so it
> > makes no sense rant against Canonical only. There's scott's patches
> > list[1] that sucks IMHO, and utnubu one[2]. AFAIK, some PTS work was
> > already done too so we (probably) are listing if there's a ubuntu
> > patch in every Debian package from qa.d.o. After all, do you still
> > want annoying automatic bug reports?
>
> > We've a lot more volunteers than Canonical, if you want to change the
> > scenario (and i'm not writing to Daniel only) you should join
> > utnubu[3] and help,
>
> Of course people can do this, but this is so very much not the point. The
> point is that publishing source packages on a website that people have to
> poll is not "giving back to Debian", and AFAICT the majority of changes
> Ubuntu makes to packages are only made available to Debian in this format.
> This includes many changes in Ubuntu's universe section[1] which I think it's
> bad strategy to be making externally to Debian in the first place if
> they're serious about limiting divergence from Debian.
I agree with the poll thing, but the 'giving back to Debian' applies
when you think about things like xorg (David even wrote it), gksu
(kov), pkg-ltsp, some other transitions and i'm sure that someone can
came up with a better list than me.
> I've also seen Canonical employees make comments in the past to the effect
> that Debian has an obligation to meet Ubuntu part-way (read: monitor
> Ubuntu's changes) on the question of integrating their changes back into
> sid. This is either a wholly unrealistic assessment of the scalability
> issues with coordinating between the many CDDs and Debian derivatives in
> existence, or simply hubris regarding Ubuntu's privileged position within
> the Debian cosmos; but in either case, it does not support the thesis that
> Canonical systematically "gives back to Debian" or that they have
> succeeded in structuring Ubuntu's culture in a way that promotes such giving
> back.
They give something back to Debian (see above), the current problems
are around the way they're informing us about their patches not if
they contribute or not. They contribute, the people are just mixing up
the patch handling issue with others contributions.
> All of which is fine, and the right of anyone working off of Debian (hurray
> Free Software!), up until the point where one starts claiming to be giving
> back to Debian when by and large they are not; and I'm afraid this does seem
> to be the case with Ubuntu today.
They're saying that really, but they're not saying that every patch is
classified and informed to us. With that in mind, they're not lying
and contributing something back. If it's enough or not and how it
could be better, i'm trying to discuss.
--
Gustavo Franco
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