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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemLPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemPosted Sep 18, 2008 7:45 UTC (Thu) by Lovechild (guest, #3592)In reply to: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem by drosser Parent article: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem
I also think the emotional backlash is covering up what Greg is trying to say. If you consume upstream projects, you should value for your own sake contributing to them. Otherwise you have no influence on where they go, it might be in directions unsuitable to your goals forcing you to keep up with an avalance of changes (especially in the case of the kernel - having a feature out of the tree is a major amount of work to keep solid and tested).
That being said, seeing as the first line of defence against Greg's stats were that they didn't include contributions before they consolidated on the @canonical emails for contributions to the kernel. He corrected that, now mdz still complains about the statistics. The best way to prove that they are indeed providing patches would be to point them out. This time the complain didn't even have a point of correction attached, it was just that the stats might be wrong. Sure if they are, let's fix them. If you want glory and fame for your contributions as well as once and for all dispell the "Canonical doesn't give back" accusations then just prove that you do give back in measure.
One good thing that has come out of this whole debate seems to have been Canonical pledging to provide more work upstream. Just the other day they announced the hiring of a team of designers to help with interaction design. I can't wait to see who is on there and what they can do to help us. Aside that their Apport service is pure awesome, I wish though that it could be made more of an upstream project. As a feature it is vastly better than any other bug reporting tool and it helps make Ubuntu very pleasurable to use during their development cycle.
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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:43 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] According to the article this is what Greg was trying to say:
if you are a developer, if you want to be a part of the ecosystem, and if you work for a non-contributing company: quit. This view is not uncommon in the business ecosystem.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:53 UTC (Thu) by Lovechild (guest, #3592) [Link]
You confuse the point as it relates to businesses consuming Free Software and developers employed by said companies.
If your business depends on Free Software, then as a business it is in your best interest to help shape it. If you work for one of these companies and they prevent you from participating then quitting is a sensible option - for you and for the company. Eventually brain drain will force these companies to reevaluate their position and take a more active role, till then good fortune has it that the sector is booming, jobs are not far between so quitting is not neccesarily a bad choice. That is if you, the developer, enjoy being part of the Free Software community and participating actively, if not then by all means enjoy your job.
Not once has the Canonical developers been blamed for Canonical' lack of contributions, that is a business decision, as such the business is the one with which the problem is debated.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 13:31 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Indeed, why didn't Greg make his point in the Novell canteen instead of at this relatively high profile public conference?The way I understood it, is that not a single distributor of (free) software is required to do anything, except adhere to the license(s) under which the software is distributed. Confusing this kind of clarity with more or less meaningless statistics and emotional pleas is business as usual.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 14:50 UTC (Thu) by mmcgrath (subscriber, #44906) [Link]
"The way I understood it, is that not a single distributor of (free) software is required to do anything"
This is the difference between the spirit and the letter of open source software. The letter must be followed, and is. The spirit should be, otherwise high profile developers will crap all over you for not being part of the ecosystem.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 20:08 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Has it started already?
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 18:04 UTC (Thu) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link] If you consume upstream projects, you should value for your own sake contributing to them. This is a popular meme in this discussion, but I think it misses the point. About half of the people in the room raised their hands during Greg's talk to indicate that they were running Ubuntu on their laptops. Does that mean that they should be expected to provide packaging and integration patches for Ubuntu? Of course not. It's free! Many of them contribute to projects which are upstream of Ubuntu, and thus benefit it indirectly. Ubuntu, by creating a system that they want to use as their development platform, provides an indirect benefit as well. A lot of people use Ubuntu and don't contribute anything, directly or indirectly. This doesn't make them unethical or shortsighted.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 19:35 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]
I doubt those developers develop on their laptops... and perhaps do not use Ubuntu as a development platform.
I don't know one way or another... so I'm not going to assume they don't... as long as you don't assume they do.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 19, 2008 5:50 UTC (Fri) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
Why on earth would a developer have a laptop and NOT develop on it? While laptops aren't ideal development platforms perhaps, they let you get a lot of work done while on planes, trains, etc.
Ubuntu works just fine as a development system - it's basically Debian with a nice UI and more polish, so lots of development tools are just an apt-get away.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 19, 2008 14:46 UTC (Fri) by bboissin (subscriber, #29506) [Link]
Actually I for example use Ubuntu on my laptop, develop for upstream projects.
Ubuntu is quite a nice distro but I'm not really happy with their relations wrt upstream. In fact for the packages in universe/multiverse, I prefer reporting the bug directly to debian otherwise I'm not sure if it will land in debian or upstream.
I would really prefer if ubuntu did less hacks to "fix" stuff, but instead worked with upstream to find the proper fix. I know it's harder and it takes more time but it benefits more people (and there are less chances for the fix to create a regression).
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 19, 2008 21:18 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
If you are not happy with your distribution's relationship to upstream, you should really express it to them especially if you are a upstream developer yourself. It is really important that distributions get the message that upstream contributions are the key to a healthy ecosystem and play a important part in it. Otherwise switch to a distribution which understands this.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 19, 2008 23:22 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Here's a question I have for you. How much of your discomfort over how "fixes" are handled in Ubuntu is there because of previous actions taken by Canonical employees specifically versus Ubuntu community volunteers or for that matter Ubuntu contributors who are employeed to work on Ubuntu packages by other companies.
Are the problems you see systemic in to the entire Ubuntu contributor base. Or are the problems you see associated with only the manhours that Canonical as a corporate entity has direct influence over how they are spent?
If you think the problem is systemic you should see if you can start a discussion inside Ubuntu to look at reforming at the package maintainership model that is being used. A systemic problem could be addressed by adjusting the team concept Ubuntu is using to add more individual accountability. For example teams could grow a specific tasking to just deal with upstream patch submission and sheparding and make a specific individual accountable for that in some way...if that sort of thing isn't there already. I'm thinking some sort of public flogging for failure to push patches upstream... or maybe a form of gladiatorial combat. Lot's of options really.
-jef
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 23:22 UTC (Thu) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] Does that mean that they should be expected to provide packaging and integration patches for Ubuntu? Of course not.If you're a user, you can contribute back by testing and reporting bugs (and perhaps provide patches for packaging bugs). In that vein, I don't see why developers working for a Linux company should not be expected to have the ability to work with upstream.
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