Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Posted Apr 6, 2022 15:41 UTC (Wed) by calumapplepie (guest, #143655)
In reply to: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr by Thalience
Parent article: Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Strong package ownership isn't a problem. I am the expert in my package: if you want to make changes, you should go through me, to be sure you don't break anything. If I'm doing work, I don't want that work to be messed up by someone making a 'fix' that conflicts with mine.

Their are processes to deal with stubborn maintainers: however, you can't force them to do work.

Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Posted Apr 6, 2022 17:09 UTC (Wed) by jeltz (guest, #88600) [Link] (1 responses)

If there are processes for dealing with stubborn package maintainers why have they not been invoked in this case? To me as an outsider it seems like the current maintainer of dpkg is being stubborn and blocking patches for people who have done the work (e.g. Ubuntu's dpkg maintainers who have managed to pull off the same merge). So it is not about forcing people to work.

Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Posted Apr 6, 2022 19:01 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

The maintainer for certain packages are also the upstream of said packages. In such cases even if the 'maintainer' was moved, it would still have the upstream to deal with.

Things take a long time in Debian by design. It is pretty much a 'they who live longest, win' do-ocracy. You do what you want until you don't want to do it anymore and if people didn't like it they could either come up with a replacement package, a replacement system or a replacement OS (aka moved to something else). In the end, this goes back to the core reason Debian exists for many people, to be the arbitrator of 'licensing' decisions ( https://lwn.net/Articles/884301/ ) and that means it is more like a law journal than a fast running OS distributor. I say a law journal because in the end it is important to have a good argument which may be used by someone else later or to be counter argued years later . Those arguments are important and have shaped a lot of long term thinking in both Open and Closed source software in the last 3 decades. However also as a law journal, there is rarely a closed case. Things will be relitigated as people come up with different ideas and concerns.

The problem is that these arguments and relitigations also extend to what some people think is what Debian is for.. writing an OS.

Debian still having trouble with merged /usr

Posted Apr 6, 2022 17:39 UTC (Wed) by atnot (subscriber, #124910) [Link]

> however, you can't force them to do work

That this would be needed in the first place is precisely the issue though. In a model where the project collectively owns packages and the maintainer is merely a steward or primary point of contact for it, there would be no need to force anyone to do any work.

In such a model, standardization means less work for you and cooperation is beneficial lest your decisions be overridden by others. Meanwhile in Debian's model, standardization increases your workload without any benefits, and being uncooperative reduces your personal maintainance burden.