Re: Q to nominees: Rough plan on Debian/Ubuntu non-collaboration?
On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 10:48:08AM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> All,
>
> Encouraging collaboration between Debian and Ubuntu seems like a good
> thing to me since there is a lot of work/code re-use and people overlap
> between these projects.
>
> However what is not clear to me from the discussion is what the
> differences ought to be, and if there are contexts where collaboration
> and merging things with Ubuntu is not a good idea for Debian.
>
> Establishing those boundaries and clarifying what we believe may help
> people who are involved in both Debian and Ubuntu to guide their actions
> when wearing different hats.
>
> Answers may also help us to understand what you as future DPL believe
> what Debian should be going forward.
>
> May I ask the nominees to share their thoughts on this?
>
> Some detailed topics for consideration:
>
> - Ubuntu uses Snap and the Snap Store, is that something which Debian
> should adopt as part of the improved collaboration with Ubuntu?
I'm not sure what this means; tbh. snapd is maintained in Debian by
Zygmunt, you can install and use it. The snap store obviously contains
a lot of non-free software which isn't particularly well aligned with
Debian's values.
>
> - Ubuntu has a different system installer than Debian, is merging them
> within scope?
This is a question for the image and installer teams; I believe and I
have explained that in the previous thread that our approach to building
pools of debs on a disk and then installing those is far inferior to the
image based workflow. But again, this is not really a DPL topic.
>
> - Ubuntu is aligned with corporate/governmental interests that can have
> a preference for non-GPL software. What are the concerns
> collaborating along that effort? I'm thinking about replacing
> CoreUtils with UUtils, GCC with Clang, GnuPG with Seqoia etc.
That's a bit paranoid.
As the person driving the Sequoia thing out of personal interest,
let me assure you this is all down to GnuPG having forked the
standard and the implementation being sloppy. Others have already
explained that your premise even doesn't hold: Sequoia is LGPL
licensed. Also I did that in Debian so far for gpgv->sqv, but
it hasn't landed in Ubuntu yet.
clang and uutils have other things to offer.
> - Ubuntu is generally more relaxed about copyright licensing and
> software freedom perspective than Debian, and Ubuntu includes and make
> use of more non-free content than what is in Debian. Is collaborating
> on expanding that in scope for Debian?
Which specific non-free content are you interested in? There is no
significant difference between Debian and Ubuntu; except that the
components are named differently...
> - Ubuntu doesn't support some architectures/ports that we have in
> Debian, and Ubuntu support/assume some CPU features that Debian
> doesn't. Is harmonizing the set of support in scope?
>
> - Ubuntu has a fixed time-based release schedule, as that something we
> should adopt?
These are questions and decisions for the release team.
--
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