* Matt Zimmerman <mdz@ubuntu.com> [2006-01-16 15:39]: > On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 02:59:58AM +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: >> It's not about succeeding. It's about false statements all the time, >> like "Every Debian developer is also an Ubuntu developer." If I were I >> would know. And they are recompiling all my packages, so you can't even >> say that they are using my packages directly. > > Is the meaning of this statement truly unclear to you, or is this purely a > rhetorical point? Under the assumption that you read it differently than I > do, I'll attempt to explain. Do we call RMS a Debian developer? Do we call Linus a Debian Developer? Does anyone seriously consider that? Pardon, but that's ridiculous. I don't have upload permission at all, can't do anything about my packages, there are changed packages with still my name as maintainer that I never got any information about -- and you still have the guts to call me a Ubuntu developer? Sorry for laughing into your face for that... >> It's also about false statements like "We sync our packages to Debian >> regularly," because that simply doesn't happen for quite a lot of us, >> otherwise all these heated discussions wouldn't happen. > > Given that you saw this on a wiki page, a disclaimer about wiki contents > should be implicit. It's still as cite from Mark on there, and I don't think that the cite is wrong. Or do you rather consider your fellow developers putting false statements intenionally there? > However, regardless of whether it's an accurate quote, it's quite > clear to me from context that your interpretation doesn't match the > text. My interpretation of "regularly" and "sync" and _especially_ the "We" most hopefully doesn't vary very much with that of most people. > The full quote is "We sync our packages to Debian regularly, because > that introduces the latest work, the latest upstream code, and the > newest packaging efforts from a huge and competent open source > community. Without Debian, Ubuntu would not be possible." It should > be obvious from the remainder of the sentence that it is talking about > propagation of changes *from* Debian *to* Ubuntu. Then I guess the to should be changed into a from, just to get the direction where the sync really happens and what you are willing to really do straight with the reality. > It was inappropriate for this user to raise this issue with you, > rather than with Ubuntu, but that's been discussed elsewhere in this > thread already. So? There is the Maintainer field that still has my name and my email address in it as being responsible for that very package -- where I can't do anything against it. That's simply wrong. > What I find interesting about your statement is that you seem to imply > that the situation would have been better if you had been notified > that your package was a part of Ubuntu. Then I would had been able to a.) check if someone might add changes, b.) to check if my address and name is in the changed package, and c.) inform the person at hand that I don't think that the changes make much sense and if there are changes needed for ubuntu that they should at least have the courtsey to leave me out of the Mainainer field, becasue again: _I_ can't do anything for the package in ubuntu. I have no upload rights there. Yes, the situation would had been _immensly_ been better. It would had shown at least that Ubuntu cares for its upstream. > This would be technically simple to implement, but I'm not convinced > that it's possible to do it in a socially acceptable way. Emailing > every Debian maintainer to notify them that their package is present > in Ubuntu sounds like spam to me, and posting Ubuntu-related > announcements to Debian mailing lists has been deemed inappropriate by > many in Debian as well. From first I knew only that there is this Ubuntu which goes for one CD with gnome and xorg on it. I thought fine, I don't have a package in that range, so why should it bother me too much, so I didn't check. Do you really think that everyone in Debian is aware that there exist a thing like multiverse or whatever which seems to include every single package that is in Debian? I wasn't, for a very long time. An announce along that lines instead of a press release so you can add d-d-a to your announce lists would hadn't stirred up so much bad blood, don't you think so? > The creation of Ubuntu was *very* widely publicized, as was the fact > that it was based on Debian, and this fact has been mentioned > countless times since, both in the press and on Debian mailing lists. But it wasn't really mentioned that it includes every single package that is out there.... Again, beside that, it would had been a courtsey to change the Maintainer field, or send patches back. Applying patches and leaving the Maintainer field to a DD is just terribly impolite, because the "Maintainer" isn't the maintainer anymore and can't do anything about it, and additionally doesn't get informed at all about the changes! I ask you, Matt, because you seemed like a reasonable person at the debconf: Do you think I'm absolutely wrong with that? Putting out changed things in the name of others, not informing them, with them not being able (besides not knowing about it) to change it? >> Again, speaking for myself, I haven't noticed such a thing for myself > > I find this type of disclaimer very frustrating. That's fine, and I grant it to you. But can't you see how frustrated I am (or, frankly spoken, quite some others, too), being confronted with changes _under my name_, that I wasn't informed about at all? Matt, you are in the community too long to plead not to know how it's expected to work... If you change something, why not push it back or inform? I didn't know at all that something was changed, it's immensly hard for me to find it, because a pulling task is hell of a work, because it's draining from often enough finding nothing.... > Setting aside the debate about patch submission for a moment, in the > case of most packages, there are no patches in Ubuntu relative to > Debian. So you even confirm with this message that the pulling job that seems to be expected from Debian Developers is a stupid thing? At least here we agree. > In fact, I just looked, and I found only one package with maintainer > alfie@debian.org which has a delta in Ubuntu: libmetakit2.4.9.3. I > read the patch just now; here's what's in it: I did it, too. I thought I covered that. > - Packaging transition for the gcc4 C++ ABI. Debian developers were > notified about the availability of these patches in Ubuntu when the > transition began in Debian, though it looks like you chose not to > use it, and rebuilt the package instead. I wonder why I never received any bugreport about my stupid and wrong C++ transition here... After thinking now for the fourth time about this patch and my sort-of objection to the need I noticed that I did a C++ transition upload but forgot to change the library name appropriately. Though, exactly this is what I would have wished for: Why is this done in silent? Why not sent along? > - autoconf has been re-run. That is much preferably done beforehand, not on build time, especially since the autoconf changed files are in the ubuntu diff, too... > In other words, I don't see what it is that you're dissatisfied about, > in your role as maintainer of these packages. I am dissatisfied about that noone informed me about my wrong C++ transition upload, where there clearly seem to have been someone in ubuntu who noticed it. Is there some game going on there for how long a DD takes to notice such an error themself, or what's the reason behind it? > Are you speaking for yourself or on behalf of someone else? Mostly about myself, but given that I'm not the only one in this thread who complains about not getting any notifications about patches done within ubuntu that are relevant for Debian you can see it that I'm speaking for some others, too. >> , and there wouldn't be the need for utnubu if there were, don't you think >> so? > > No, I don't agree. I see the organization of that team as a positive sign. As a positive sign that ubuntu have to do less of the work that is common sense in the rest of the community? So long, Alfie -- <Joey> All our body are belong to Alfie
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