LCA: Disintermediating distributions

it's good to see that distributions are slowly awakening to the idea that there are others out
there.  i've always found it backward to have distributions championing this "open source"
stuff while turning around and adding features, fixing bugs, etc... and keeping all these
changes local.  why does an upstream maintainer need to search through all the random places
that package their code in case someone has changed something ?  distributions should be
taking more responsibility for working with upstream developers.  what is great for
$random-distribution is usually great for everyone.  redhat was horrendous in this respect,
but hopefully the fedora project will help them mend their ways.

may also be worthwhile to mention that this isnt just something to look at for linux
distributions as the bsd projects are largely the same thing.  they bring to the table the
core pieces (libc/kernel), but beyond that they are often just using the same packages.  also
good to point out that they are terrible at pushing code back to upstream.  once code gets
imported into their system, it's like a black hole where it never comes out again :(.

getting interconnectivity integrated in bugzilla would have a lovely trickle down affect i
would think.  we can talk about how people should be doing XYZ, but by simply making XYZ
readily available, it would more come into its own.