Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Steve Kemp wrote:
> Neither Ubuntu nor Debian do anything special to get hardware support
> that is provided by the kernel proper and tools that neither group
> created.
AFAIK Ubuntu has a far less conservative approach to kernel patching than
Debian. So yes, they might quite well support more hardware even if we are
talking Debian unstable. They probably have less issues to distribute
non-free stuff [in the installer, even], so it would help with the
firmwares, as well.
> > B. Ubuntu members not only support mailing lists and IRC but suport user
> > forums which are so much more user friendly and don't fill up your
> > mailbox.
>
> Debian has forums, such as forums.debian.net, but personally I
> prefer mailing lists.
So do I. I won't waste my time tracking web forums if I can help it. IMO
e-mail and netnews is far, far more productive time-wise, search-wise and
archive-wise. Not to mention it gives you a choice of user-agents to access
the information, and can be dealt with offline.
> > C. You seem to worry only about packaging. You push people to package.
Many of us do care a great deal about package integration, which is *real*
packaging. Just tossing something inside a package container is not
"proper packaging" any more than drawing some lines in paper is "proper
engineering". I have defended this position since I joined Debian, many
years ago.
But Ubuntu, unlike Debian, made integration their top priority (sometimes to
the expense of stuff we wouldn't do ever). Of course it shows. We should
see what good we can take from the work they have done already, and see if
we can become a bit better on that area too.
> I disagree with almost every statement you made in this paragraph.
So do I. But we *do* tell people to get to work and help, when it is not
something "one of us" is going to do already anyway. Which is fine if we
are polite about it, since unlike Ubuntu, we *are* all volunteers, and
mostly overworked ones at that.
> > E. Going back to the last statement, I could write an entire email on how
> > people think you guys are so unapproachable and so down right mean to
> > users who make these suggestions. Users' concerns mean nothing to you.
Well, I could write one explaining what I think of demands (as opposed to
suggestions, questions, polite requests, etc) from people who are not
contributing to a given work (be them users or developers or whomever), too.
Now, being *mean* to users is severily frowned upon in Debian, unless the
"user" is behaving in a very unacceptable manner. So we will be waiting
your reply with the specific occourences in order to deal with the issue.
And "users concern nothing to you" is simply untrue. It is not true even
project-wide, and many, many maintainers go out of their way to help users
even when they are the sort of people that have to be walked around by the
hand. Fortunately, most users I have dealt with were not like that: it
takes way too much effort that I'd rather expend doing something that will
help more than just one person.
But you better remember that "users" are a big demographic group, and very
diverse.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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