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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemLPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemPosted Sep 18, 2008 18:04 UTC (Thu) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112)In reply to: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem by Lovechild Parent article: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem
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.
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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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