LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem [LWN.net]

LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem

Posted Sep 18, 2008 16:12 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
In reply to: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem by tle@holymonkey.com
Parent article: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem

If everything works so well, how is it, then, that the bugs and troubles Ubuntu's user-base generate so few upstream patches? At least in those plumbing packages. Is it because they don't fix problems or because they don't forward fixes upstream?

A I pointed out elsewhere in this thread: I don't think Ubuntu is required by some ethical standards to contribute. It should make sense for Ubuntu for economical reasons to do so. While I appreciate RedHat, Novell and others, I don't suppose they employ so many developers just for the PR value.

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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem

Posted Sep 18, 2008 17:37 UTC (Thu) by tle@holymonkey.com (guest, #47821) [Link]

> At least in those plumbing packages. Is it because they don't fix problems or because they don't forward fixes upstream?

I agree that the discussion should focus on a distribution's _process_ of bug reporting and submission of patches to upstream.

Ubuntu does all of their bug reporting, patch submission, and upstream reporting in the open. Just like any open source project, don't just complain about something not working. At the VERY least, look at the process, and point out where it is failing.

LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem

Posted Sep 18, 2008 18:55 UTC (Thu) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]

Users' bugs and troubles don't generate patches: developers do. Ubuntu has millions of users, and dozens of developers (only some of whom work for Canonical). We receive several thousand bug reports per month, for the entire free software stack.

We focus primarily on fixing integration and packaging problems (which are our unique responsibility), followed by the most critical problems we inherit from upstream. This is similar to how Debian works, though the scales involved are dramatically different.