Re: Questions about Debian derivatives
Hi Paul
On 2022/03/27 05:53, Paul Wise wrote:
Debian's relationship with the various distributions derived from
Debian and approach to existing and new derivatives has had a wide
range of states. Most derivatives recieve indifference from Debian.
When it comes to the indifference, I think for the most part it's
because it's just not possible for everyone to keep up with everything
that's happening, even in Debian, and so it makes it difficult to know
what's going on in derivatives other than what we see in the news. For
most people, I think this is more a case of just being busy than being
indifferent. Many derivatives, while useful, just isn't that interesting
from a DD perspective. When I see a new debian-based distro that enables
zfs by default and has a nice web interface for enabling samba shares
(just to make up a hypothetical), I'd think "oh, that could be useful
for someone" but won't feel much of an obligation to give it a second
thought. Is that the kind of indifference you're referring to? Or do we
need better interfaces with them all together?
There has been animosity from Debian towards some derivatives. We have
welcomed the creation of derivatives. We have welcomed developers from
derivatives into Debian packaging teams. We have encouraged people to
start blends within Debian instead of starting derivatives.
I'm guessing that you're speaking about derivatives like Ubuntu and
Devuan. I think enough people are familiar with the complexities behind
those so I won't go into them now, but are there any specific animosity
with a derivative that we could've avoided that I might not know about?
What do you think of Debian's current relationship with derivatives?
That's of course different for each derivative, each depending on their
goals, how they work, how they feel about us and our values, etc. For a
derivative like Ubuntu, there's been a whole lot of Ubuntu developers
over the years that have also been DDs, which have made some areas of
collaboration easier. Ubuntu is also a unique derivative in that we list
Ubuntu information in our QA pages (like which version they carry,
whether there's bugs filed, patches, etc). We also carry a bunch of
ubuntu-specific packages in Debian, which makes it easier for someone to
contribute to Ubuntu using Debian. So I'd consider Ubuntu to probably be
our most tightly integrated derivative. That's not to say that there
hasn't been some problems over the years, but the two projects have
vastly different goals, and it's understandable that there would be
friction at some point.
In terms of relationship status, I think most of the derivatives are
similar to Ubuntu in the sense that "it's complicated", and then it
ranges all the way to the type of indifference described before.
There are some derivatives that really shine:
PureOS - debian derivative with nice look and feel and is endorsed by FSF
Kali Linux - geared towards various information security tasks, such as
Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics and Reverse
Engineering
Tails - portable operating system
that protects against
surveillance and censorship
In terms of relationship with these 3 listed above? I honestly don't
know. Relationships with derivatives haven't even been on my radar as
DPL for the last terms, not because I don't care, but because there's
just been so many things that's high priority.
Do you think the derivatives team could do something like host a video
call, inviting all derivatives who would like to submit feedback about
every 6 months or so? Then at least some more people from both sides
could get to know the people on the other side, and likely some problems
can get solved too.
What would you like to change about our relationships?
Well, I'll admit that I'm a bit ignorant on our biggest problems with
our relationships with our derivatives.
Can I through this question back to you and ask you to share some of
your insight and concerns?
What do you feel Debian's current approach to derivatives is?
I suppose our approach to derivatives is quite similar to our users, we
through all these source and binary packages and isos out there and then
everyone gets to fend for themselves. Sure, we do have documentation and
some support channels, but for the most part there's not lots of hand
holding involved.
Also, do you think that's a problem?
What would you like to change about that approach?
One improvement I'd like to see is PPAs. Derivatives tend to fumble
about and re-invent package hosting systems, sometimes getting it wrong
(like not signing their repositories). It would be nice to have a system
where users could host their packages with us in a user repository, and
also if we could offer package build infrastructure.
It would also be nice to offer some infrastructure to build their
installation media for them. All of this might make it easier for them
to get started, and also, perhaps create a smaller delta towards
becoming a pure blend if it makes sense to do so.
Not sure if you're familiar with extrepo? It's another great recent
addition to Debian that makes it easy to add a known external package
archive and install software from it. It would probably be a good idea
for many of our derivatives to have their archives listed there.
What is your favourite derivative?
I'll go with Kali Linux, I think they're a good example of a good
derivative.
Would you like to see it merged into Debian?
I'm quite ambivalent really. I *would* like to see it merged into
Debian, but they also seem to be doing completely fine on their own, I
certainly wouldn't want to force it, especially if it's going to cause
some friction.
Plus, right now we're in trouble with our live build infrastructure, so
currently for testing we're not even building our own live images, it's
pretty much where my technical work will be focused on in the immediate
future, and I hope that we'll have non-x86 live images for bookwork and
also a live image for debian-jr, but now I'm getting a bit side-tracked :)
Thoughts on identical Debian pure blends vs derivatives?
Not sure I understand the question? Are there pure blends and
derivatives that are identical to each other?
Other thoughts welcome, as are thoughts from non-candidates.
Well, we've talked about this a few times over the years. In 2012 in
Nicaragua you first introduced me to the derivatives team, and the
derivatives census. I never contributed to it much but I still think
it's important work. I've been on the distro side to and found it
valuable because the census also checks that some things in the distro
is configured correctly for that derivative (like the origins data).
Last I spoke to you, I think you also said that you don't have much time
to work on this anymore, and that the distro census is probably going to
die down. Is this still the status? Do you think it can be saved? We
probably have quite a wide audience here, do you think it's worth
another shot to get people involved to work on it?
-Jonathan
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