Re: from / to /usr/: a summary

["Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org>]

* Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [111231 18:41]:
> "Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org> writes:
>
> > My experience is rather that people usually stick to their core packages
> > as personal property and won't except patches to make them more well
> > behaved.
>
> That experience aside, we're not talking about patches here, assuming
> Marco's description of the situation is correct.  We're talking about a
> full-blown fork and a need for a new udev upstream.  You don't need to
> send patches to anyone for that; you need to set up a Git repository, a
> web page, a development mailing list, some infrastructure around how
> you're going to maintain the software, and start doing regular releases,
> and then see about getting Debian to switch upstreams.
>
> > If people maintain some core piece of software and want to decide what
> > the package looks like, listen to what other people want.
>
> This isn't about the package.  It's about the *software*, the part that we
> generally use from upstream as much as possible because asking people to
> be both upstream and the Debian package maintainer is generally too much
> work for one person or even a small packaging team.

If the maintainer refuses patches and only wants to fix brokeness if
someone does a full blown upstream fork then this is a maintainer issue.

        Bernhard R. Link