Bug#686447: [Pkg-zfsonlinux-devel] any news/reply regarding ZFS in NEW?

[Robert Millan <rmh@debian.org>]

On 01/03/2014 15:46, Turbo Fredriksson wrote:
> Please give us/me a direct link to the Debian GNU/Linux policy point that explain that this is not acceptable.

I don't have that. I'm telling you that Debian infrastructure is not ready to handle cross-arch
namespace collisions based on my experience hitting the exact same problem before. There's a reason
we add a "freebsd-" prefix to functionally equivalent packages like:

freebsd-smbfs - mount command for the SMB/CIFS filesystem
freebsd-net-tools - FreeBSD networking tools
freebsd-nfs-common - NFS support files common to client and server
freebsd-nfs-server - FreeBSD server utilities needed for NFS on GNU/kFreeBSD
freebsd-ppp - FreeBSD Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) userland daemon

Your repeated insistence on occupying the "zfsutils" namespace makes me think you have a self-serving
reason for this. How do you plan to react when actual breakage happens?

On 02/03/2014 05:56, Turbo Fredriksson wrote:
> That is what OpenZFS.org is for - eventually (hopefully sooner than later), you/we/I will be able to
> do just that - one source base for all architectures (Linux, FreeBSD, Illumos etc). But we (they) 
> aren't there yet.
> 
> 
> As it stands today, there are two "upstream sources" for/in Debian GNU/Linux - one for the Linux
> kernel and one for the FreeBSD kernel. These share _a lot_ (I can't give you an exact figure, but if
> I had to give a "between thumb and index finger guess", I'd say 90%) of the same code (they both
> originated from the last open Solaris release before Oracle closed the source again) and provide the
> exact same functionality, in the exact same way with binary programs that behave the exact same way
> (same options and parameters etc).

Unless I missed something, ZoL is not OpenZFS. And neither ZoL nor OpenZFS support the kernel of
FreeBSD at the time of writing.

You make it look like you're adding a portable package, when in fact it is a Linux-specific
package.

The idea that you're adding a portable package is very consistent with your pretension of occupying
the namespace. I think it would serve that agenda to imply that ZoL is OpenZFS and the source you're
adding is portable, but I don't think you even believe what you're implying.

If you truly believe in the "unification path", why don't you try Dimitri's suggestion? I notice
that you ignored it on your reply to him:

On 02/03/2014 03:52, Dimitri John Ledkov wrote:
> Also, if there is zfs-dkms module available, why existing zfsutils
> packages just can't enable compilation on "linux-any"?! Which should
> also reduce the scope of linux specific packages down to
> -dkms/-initramfs, and maybe an arch specific patch-series.

The packages are so similar, right? Maybe he has a point. Why don't you send patches for zfsutils to
enable compilation on linux-any? I'll be happy to work with you.

-- 
Robert Millan