smoke screen? [LWN.net]

smoke screen?

Posted Oct 2, 2008 18:16 UTC (Thu) by jsbarnes (guest, #4096)
In reply to: smoke screen? by s0f4r
Parent article: Ubuntu debuts its Upstream Report

As upstream for one of the Ubuntu packages (xf86-video-intel) I can say
that this is definitely not a smokescreen. My interactions with the Ubuntu
packagers have been great. They file good quality bug reports, are
conscientious about getting needed info, and often attach patches we can
apply directly. That's not to say other distros don't do the same (the
Debian, Gentoo and Mandriva guys are also very helpful), but Ubuntu
definitely does the right thing here.

Interestingly Fedora/Red Hat don't interact much with our bug system (i.e.
I rarely see Fedora bugs get reported to the upstream bug tracker), which
is a shame, but that's more than offset by direct developer participation
from the Red Hat guys (people like airlied, mjg59 and ajax put a lot into
our driver).

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smoke screen?

Posted Oct 2, 2008 19:27 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

I think this drills down to an important underlying point. Which parties are contributing bits of code into upstream. Isn't that the fundamental friction being expressed?

If Canonical wants to get ahead of the perception problem, they need to be able to track patch flow as well as ticket comment flow. Downstream supplied patched do matter, and may not show up in the the commit stats in the same way that direct developer involvement does. You obviously can't directly compare upstream developer activity done on company time, to volunteer patch submission efforts. So watching how patches come in via a bug tracking interface isn't going to tell the whole story but it may help turn the corner on Canonical's upstream relation issue.

-jef