>These opinions are my own and do not represent an official statement by
>Debian or any of its subprojects.
That clarifies everything for me. You have been, in effect, posting your opinion but with an appearance of authority. I can respect that as you are trying to maintain peaceful relations, which is in everyones best interest.>Debian or any of its subprojects.
>Upstream gave up on the project. This is not unique in the software in
>Debian. Upstreams give up all the time, for various reasons. And there
>doesn't need to be confusion about it. The abandoned software remains in
>Debian, and if someone doesn't step up to take it over, it eventually
>goes to Debian QA. If someone does take it over, as often happens with
>software that is useful for which there is no alternative, then
>hopefully it continues to live on in Debian indefinitely under new
>leadership.
I'm well aware that abandoned software remains part of Debian for a time but that is, for me personally at least, besides the point here. Live Build is in Jessie, Testing, Sid, and even Experimental. Live Wrapper isn't in anything so it is not usable. If no one picks up the active development of Live Build how long will it remain in testing? That's a rhetorical question.
>At the risk of sounding like a broken record ... people are still acting
>as though live-build will be imminently removed from Debian or will
>suddenly lose support, neither of which are true. There's no reason at
>this time to remove it. It is in decent shape, and a significant pool of
>developers and users remain who know enough about it that it will for
>the time being continue to be supported.
It is highly unlikely Debian will move alpha software into Stretch when it becomes stable. Jessie is 6 moths old so Testing freeze is possibly 12 months away with Stretech's release approximately 6 months after that. I can only hope Live Wrapper is mature by then.
>I'm not taking a technical leadership role. However, I'm continuing in a
>support role for as long as it looks like that is in Debian's best
>interest. I have a fair bit of experience with it and try to assist
>whenever I can.
I, personally, appreciate that.
>From what I could see, Debian CD made every effort to assist Debian Live
>before striking off on their own. They reported problems and provided
>patches (some of which, like the UEFI one, were rejected, and no
>alternative solution provided for a very, very long time).
>From what I could see, Debian CD made every effort to assist Debian Live
>before striking off on their own. They reported problems and provided
>patches (some of which, like the UEFI one, were rejected, and no
>alternative solution provided for a very, very long time).
So they did provide patches, ok I was unaware of that even though I asked the Debian CD team if they had done that and did not get any response.
>So I don't
>think it's fair to say they "split the resource pool". That could only
>be true if they actively pulled the existing Debian Live developers off
>the project. That's not what happened. They are now *adding to* what
>we've built with live-wrapper, as I understand it using live-boot and
>live-config at the core, bringing to the table their own resources, to
>try to help Debian (you know, the *whole* project, not two autonomous
>projects Debian Live and Debian CD with opposing goals and interests)
>have sane, non-fragile official live CD builds.
May I ask then what was not sane, what was fragile, and what was unofficial, with regards to Live Build?
>I think that's an
>excellent goal, and therefore am in support of their efforts. It's a
>more inclusive process than you have portrayed it, which is why I'm
>counseling unity here and not divisiveness.
I am in support of a better product, if it can be done. I am not in support of the way this appeared to have occurred. I am in support of unity which is why I asked a couple of times did the Debian CD team try to work with (providing patches etc) the Live Build team which you have answered now.
>So your answer to moving those discussions quicker is to push the
>live-wrapper developers away where they won't bother you?
>So your answer to moving those discussions quicker is to push the
>live-wrapper developers away where they won't bother you?
Push them away so they wont bother me? I've tried to get answers to simple questions, you know answers like "yes we did provide patches and they were ignored-rejected-whatever". If this has, as you appear to be saying and the other team actually did say, "coming for a long time" the logistics of this should have been worked out already. Having these discussions after the fact indicates a whole heap of poor planning.
>To let what drag on? live-build does what it does the same way that it
>did last month. It has excellent documentation (if I do say so myself,
>having contributed in a large degree to it), and Debian has a process of
>NMUs that allows it to continue receiving patches as needed. People are
>continuing to help with problems here on the mailing list, and people
>are continuing to help on irc. What, exactly, is the problem with this
>situation? You can continue to build images and projects based on
>live-build until whenever *you* decide it isn't working well for you and
>you want to switch to something else.
And we are back to will Live Build 5 get out of alpha so it can continue? I know you can't answer that but it is a valid question. Sure Live Build 4 can continue to be used but Live Build is in limbo because Live Build 5 development has ceased and it is alpha software.
>Sorry, I just don't see the need for this. I don't see Debian making
>"statements" in other cases where upstreams have given up and Debian has
>moved on. At least not unless it's a fairly big piece of infrastructure
>with broad impact on the project and a clarifying statement really is
>necessary (like libc6). I don't think that's the case in this situation.
>I rather think it will work out organically instead, from the people
>doing the work from here on to improve the toolset, and will not be
>something that comes down as a decree from the top.
I must have misunderstood the importance to Debian of having a "Live" system.
>What you officially do with your project is up to you. I think it's
>pretty clear by your own statement that live-wrapper is not ready for
>you to use, so you ought to continue using live-build for now. What real
>blocker stands in your way of continuing to use it if it has been
>working well for you?
Ben, if Live-wrapper is really for me to use please tell me what dist it is currently available in so I can use it? I've just done a search of Debian Packages and it isn't listed so it isn't ready for me to use. The blocker for me to use Live Build is a rather simple one that it appears the project is dead in the water. There is no lead, no further development (yes patches can be applied but Live Build 5 is alpha software and as such I can't see it getting into Stable when Stretch becomes stable, even if that is approximately 18 months away).
I'll stop now, meaning no more commentary from me on this matter at all, and just sit back and wait for Live Wrapper to actually get into a repository so I can test it out but I just want to say that your last message, which this is a reply to, says alot more about this whole situation than has been said previously. Everything appeared to be cloak and dagger until now, the appearance has changed a fair bit now.
Thanks for your responses, they were informative and very much appreciated.