Re: opinions of snappy packages
On 06/21/2016 06:43 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Zlatan Todoric writes ("Re: opinions of snappy packages"):
>> I forget about Canonical's CLA from time to time - but this solely
>> should be a reason to not adopt it in Free software projects.
>
> I think that's up to the individual maintainer.
>
> If the maintainer is prepared to carry the CLA-less patches, even if
> that means diverging from upstream and perhaps eventually becoming a
> de-facto fork, then the CLA is not a practical problem for Debian's
> users and other contributors.
>
> Or to put it another way: normally, if you maintain something in
> Debian, you might well ask someone with a patch to take it up with
> upstream directly, and you might even decline to carry in Debian a
> patch that upstream have technical objections to.
>
> But if you maintain in Debian something with an obnoxious CLA, and the
> patch submitter does not want to sign the CLA, I think you're no
> longer entitled to refuse to apply the patch just because the patch
> can't go to the ultimate upstream.
>
> How much of a practical problem this is for the maintainers in Debian
> depends on what the package is, but I think it's a decision for the
> potential maintainers, whether they want to put in that effort.
>
> This is why I was not concerned about the CLA for upstart. The Debian
> maintainer for upstart was very clear that they would be happy to
> carry CLA-blocked-upstream patches indefinitely, and it was clear
> they would have had the resources to continue to do that.
>
> Does the prospective maintainer for Snappy commit to do the same ?
>
It is not only would someone take care of it now - but what about it in
further future. Or in other words - it is better to put effort and
energy into "clean" solution (that will probably get more community
behind it) rather than diverging from upstream and having to bother with
"patch or not to patch" things.
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