Assesment [LWN.net]

Assesment

Posted Aug 5, 2009 20:44 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
In reply to: Assesment by atoponce
Parent article: Shuttleworth: On cadence and collaboration

"Let upstream determine the version that the distribution maintains."

So what does "maintain" mean when you complicate the packagescape with optional mini-repositories like Ubuntu specific PPAs? Aren't those PPA's "maintained?" They may not be official but does that matter to end users who are configuring their system to use PPAs? Doesn't the existence of PPAs break some of the fundamental assumptions here about the benefits of sticking with a specific upstream release. There are a lot of Ubuntu binaries built in launchpad PPAs, no one is talking about versioning-locking the PPA space are they? How many Ubuntu users configure at least one optional Ubuntu PPA for something in order get a newer version of some application? How widespread is the use of PPA binaries on Ubuntu LTS releases?

If Shuttleworth were really serious about the benefits of cross-distro version-locking, then I think he would need to rethink the policy on how PPAs are allowed to be used in the scope of just Ubuntu because they greatly undermine any sort of concept of an upstream preferred version which get priority attention.

-jef

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Assesment

Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:25 UTC (Wed) by beuno (guest, #44010) [Link] (2 responses)

People will install random software on their computers no matter where it comes from. Be that getdeb.net, random debs or building from tarballs. This has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. PPAs address (and improves) those use cases, as well as helping developers and cutting-edge users test out new versions to stabilize them.

The majority of users (way above 90%) will never use a PPA, or install newer versions of the software that's available by default or in the official repositories.

This means that whatever gets frozen in the archive is what the vast majority of the users experience, and distribution developers focus their time on those packages. This is what the efforts are geared towards.

PPAs have nothing to do here. You are plain out wrong and sensationalist.

Assesment

Posted Aug 5, 2009 22:19 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

I am sensationalist..that is true. I very much enjoy sensations.. don't you?

90% of all users will never touch a PPA? Is that an emotional shoot from the hip estimate or is that a fact based analysis? I'd rather like to avoid emotional statistics if at all possible. So if you can back that up with some verifiable data analysis, please do so.

I do not question that PPAs serve a useful purpose. Having users out there making use of each and every version released by an upstream developer is a very good thing. One could argue that having as many users as possible testing the newest releases as they become available maximizes the benefit to upstream developers. This is at odds with the stated benefits of cross-distro syncing for "preferred" versions. If every release that upstream developers make needs testing..then every release needs to find its way into the hands of users for widespread testing and feedback. Having distributions stagger what they distribute is one way to see a continuum of release testing.

If all the major distros version lock you are more likely to get boom-bust testing cycles where a lot of bugs go unnoticed across multiple releases instead of a flow of bugs and fixes for each upstream release. The natural feedback loop of the release early release often model is at odds with the concept of preferred version-locking.

Perhaps the reality is the fact that version locking that some distributions feel compelled to do for stability reasons is the underlying problem and not the solution. Since upstream development for many projects moves at a fast clip, the multi-year promise by distributions to keep versioning static retards the natural feedback cycle of release early release often that upstream project development makes use of.

-jef

Assesment

Posted Aug 6, 2009 5:44 UTC (Thu) by dfarning (guest, #24102) [Link]

>I am sensationalist..that is true. I very much enjoy sensations.. don't you?

I guess that depends on ones goals. Do you want to be perceived as a developer who looks at the technical pros and cons of a decision or as a marketer gathering support for your product.

One role requires sensationalism the other does not.

david

Assesment

Posted Aug 7, 2009 14:34 UTC (Fri) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] (4 responses)

Let's rephrase: 'if Red Hat were serious about RHEL, they'd ban Livna, rpmfind, and people.fp.o from existence'.

In other words, what are you on about?

Assesment

Posted Aug 7, 2009 16:26 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (3 responses)

That's just silly talk. Red Hat doesn't control these other repositories so there is no way Red Hat could be expected to speak for those organizations if Red Hat were to agree to cross-distro version locking.

Canonical most definitely control PPAs as they are part of the Launchpad service running on Canonical funded infrastructure. Canonical could turn off the Ubuntu specific PPAs tomorrow. And of course there are the Canonical's OEM specific partner repositories for Ubuntu pre-installs.
I just want it to be clear as to what Canonical is actually willing to agree to from their end as to how far version locking will go and how big an impact that will have on end-user.

Canonical could easily agree to some sort of cross-distro version locking on core components in main and then break the spirit of that agreement by making use of the PPA infrastructure they control and encouraging users to pull enhanced versions of core components from PPAs or OEM partner repositories they directly control.

But you are right, they don't need to use PPAs to break the spirit of any cross-distro version locking agreement. They could also ship multiple versions of core components in Ubuntu proper like they are planning on doing with the kernel in order to get Android emulation support out to people in Karmic. Would shipping an optional 2.6.29 kernel with Android enhancements be considered a breach of a cross-distro version-locking agreement if everyone agreed to shipping a 2.6.31 version?

-jef

Assesment

Posted Aug 7, 2009 17:42 UTC (Fri) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] (2 responses)

Sigh. I guess by that logic, OpenSUSE (sorry, Novell -- I forgot about the obsession with the controlling companies) are responsible for everything built with their build service, so they're definitely out. And Red Hat definitely control people.fedoraproject.org, so they're out as well.

As for the rest of the comment, it seems to be your standard 'someone said something about Ubuntu, let's slam them on ten thousand semi-related points and see how often I can use the word Canonical and bring up their financial backing of Ubuntu' spiel. Getting pretty dull now.

You seem to have extrapolated from 'let's get the main distributors to agree on which versions they'll ship as part of their primary releases' to 'anything put on a private package repository is part of the Ubuntu release and Canonical is responsible and this is why it's going to all fall apart'; at least, that's the most coherent summary I could come up with. Words honestly fail me. If you're actually genuinely confused about this and not just coming up with reasons to slam Ubuntu into the ground once again, you might want to check up on what a release actually comprises of. Hint: it's not random stuff on the web that happens to share the same base domain.

Anyway, by the same logic, Rawhide is not allowed to exist. Have fun selling that one.

-daniels, running Fedora on his primary laptop for the time being and Debian on his other machines, not affiliated with either Ubuntu or Canonical, etc, etc

Assesment

Posted Aug 7, 2009 18:33 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

Novell isn't pushing for cross-distro syncing publicly. If they went on record supporting the idea...then yes I would want to know how they viewed the role of their build service in light of any sort of syncing agreement. Because their build service would be just as useful to break the spirit of a 2 year cadence agreement. But thanks for bringing it up. It points to how difficult such a cadence would be to maintain in practise. As Novell derives more revenue from Studio in the future, breaking the spirit of such a syncing agreement with customized Suse remix appliances could essentially nullify some of the stated benefits to upstreams because we'd still see a continuum of versioning in long term deployments. Especially if Novell chooses to support some of those remixes with enterprise level support.

But this isn't Novell's idea...its Shuttleworth's meme. If Canonical doesn't think that PPAs nor OEM repositories that they control would be considered part of the agreement, that should be said as early on as possible to prevent any later re-interpretation.

Let's be clear at the outset as to what the boundaries are for each distributor....no implicit assumptions. It would be far far worse if one of the other distros who decided to work with Shuttleworth on this cried foul about Canonical controlled addon repositories after the agreement was in place.

-jef

Assesment

Posted Aug 8, 2009 8:15 UTC (Sat) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]

If Canonical doesn't think that PPAs nor OEM repositories that they control would be considered part of the agreement, that should be said as early on as possible to prevent any later re-interpretation.

Why would they? He said part of the release. PPAs are not part of releases. No-one has ever even suggested they are, except for you, who apparently considers Rawhide and people.fedoraproject.org to be a part of RHEL.

A release is defined fairly strictly by virtue of what's in the repositories for that release, which is a finite and well-known set of packages. You're the only one on the planet who seems to think that just because something has the same domain name or is funded by the same people, it's also magically part of the release, which is provably false. This argument is getting incredibly dull.