Re: How are things going?

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: How are things going?"):
> Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> > Brendan O'Dea writes ("Re: How are things going?"):
> >> Merging changes to dpkg from Ubuntu to Debian seems daft.  Why have two
> >> repositories?
> >
> > Debian and Ubuntu sometimes have different views about things and I
> > don't think either would be happy necessarily using the same branch.
> 
> Could you give an example of what sort of thing you anticipate being
> different?  Beyond timing of releases, which could be dealt with via
> branches within the same repository, I can't think of anything.

You're vigorously agreeing with me.

But we do need merge tracking because of the desynchronised release
cycles, at the very least.  I don't think it really matters whether
it's one repository or several, so long as it's a system with merge
tracking.

I think overall, Debian needs a proper conversation about revision
control systems and source package formats.

> I would hope that the ongoing goal would be for Ubuntu and Debian to use
> the same dpkg as much as possible, with deviations only around release
> freezes.  I can't think of anything immediately obvious that would make
> that a bad idea.  But maybe my imagination is insufficient.

(With Ubuntu hat on) I'm afraid I can't guarantee that Ubuntu won't
want to do something to dpkg that (with Debian hat on) I think is
a bad idea :-).

Ian.