Which init system for Debian?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 1:33 UTC (Thu) by Lukehasnoname (guest, #65152)
Parent article: Which init system for Debian?

I don't get this:

>Upstart is covered by a copyright license agreement, which contributors must sign to have their contributions included upstream. This is an issue for many Debian developers, who are unwilling to sign such an agreement (usually because of the asymmetry of the agreement in question) and object to core packages being covered by such terms that they will not contribute under. The position of the Debian maintainers is that, while contributions to upstream must be covered by the CLA, no such considerations attach to the Debian package; if Debian ever decides that upstream maintenance is inadequate, we can always fork upstart, since the code itself is GPL and would be no worse off than we are today with a sysvinit package that also has no upstream.

So if I contribute to the project, I must give copyright to Canonical, but if I make an exact fork, merge all changes from upstream, then republish, I'm alright?

Sounds reasonable to me.

Which init system for Debian?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 2:23 UTC (Thu) by zuki (subscriber, #41808) [Link]

> Sounds reasonable
It works for small changes. But as soon as you implement something bigger, you pull changes from upstream, and have to resolve conflicts which pop up all over the place. This requires a lot of tedious manual work, *and* is very likely to lead to bugs, unless you know the codebase and understand upstream changes in detail. If you satisfy those requirements, then it's natural to want to fix things that you notice are wrong. But you can't.

So it's reasonable only if you limit yourself to small fixes here and there. Otherwise, it's just not worth the pain.

Which init system for Debian?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 14:33 UTC (Thu) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, upstart is, like systemd, free software. You are not obliged to sign any agreement to change it. Canonical is free to use or not use the changes.

Which init system for Debian?

Posted Nov 8, 2013 17:12 UTC (Fri) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link]

> You are not obliged to sign any agreement to change it.

It's not as simple as "don't sign the agreement". Debian developers have two choices with Upstart:
1. Expect developers to sign Canonical's copyright assignment agreement and contribute changes back upstream.
2. Fork Upstart and commit to maintain the fork forever, including patches contributed by the community.

Neither sounds like a good resolution.