In defense of Ubuntu reproach [LWN.net]

In defense of Ubuntu reproach

Posted Aug 19, 2008 23:59 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
In reply to: In defense of Ubuntu reproach by nevyn
Parent article: In defense of Ubuntu

Good if more fixes escaped upstream? ... as though some evil company is keeping them hostage but Canonical is bravely working night and day to free them?

I think you're reading that exactly backward. He's complaining that Ubuntu is keeping their fixes and enhancements to themselves, and that they only occasionally manage to escape and make it upstream. IOW, Canonical is the "evil company [...] keeping them hostage".

FWIW, I think that "keeping them hostage" is a bit strong as a description of Canonical's behavior. I haven't heard anyone claim that they're failing to distribute the source to their modifications. They just aren't making the extra effort to push their work upstream where others can benefit from it.

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In defense of Ubuntu reproach

Posted Aug 20, 2008 3:52 UTC (Wed) by wtogami (subscriber, #32325) [Link]

I think you're reading that exactly backward. He's complaining that Ubuntu is keeping their fixes and enhancements to themselves, and that they only occasionally manage to escape and make it upstream. IOW, Canonical is the "evil company [...] keeping them hostage".

The issue is not "keeping them hostage" but rather the fallacy of "making available" as good enough to be a good community player. It is not enough to simply put your patches up for public download. You need to engage an upstream community project to explain the merits of patches and actively get them merged.

A related problem: Often the attitude from Ubuntu is they contribute back to upstream. But they equate upstream as Launchpad, and they wonder why everyone is not using Launchpad for their upstream.

In defense of Ubuntu reproach

Posted Aug 28, 2008 20:11 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

Patches are often forwarded to Debian. Whether Debian accepts them or not is up to them.

Other times, patches are submitted directly to Ubuntu because it is just before a release and the time to wait for it to get into upstream, request a merge, etc. will overshoot feature freeze or the release date. In these cases, upstream bugs are filed and the patches are handed over. Again, it's up to upstream whether they want to accept them or not.

And then some other times, well, I can't be the only person to think like this. I'm active enough in the Ubuntu community that I think at least a few of the other bugsquad folks would recognize me. Are patches from strangers or recognized names more likely to be accepted anywhere? Ones from recognized names. Who will recognize my name, other Ubuntu members or upstream? Ubuntu. I figure if I get them to approve it, it then gets a "and oh yeah, Ubuntu approved it already" when it goes for upstream review.