On Sun, Jan 08, 2006 at 11:17:10AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Stephan Hermann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Well, we can't change the world totally, but avoiding a tool, because > > it's free, but non-free source, it's more a joke then anything else, > > because I had to avoid many of the services I need in my daily > > developers world. > > And this belief, in a nutshell, is the reason why I'm a Debian developer > and, while I might use Ubuntu in a situation where it looks like a good > distribution, I have no interest in contributing to it except insofar as > Ubuntu, and anyone else, is welcome to reuse my contributions to Debian.
Do you mean to say that you have been discouraged from contributing to Ubuntu because the Launchpad source code is not available to you? If so, I find this confusing, given that Ubuntu was released and active long before any of the Launchpad infrastructure, and one can contribute to Ubuntu even today (and many do) without interacting with Launchpad at all. I don't use Launchpad very much yet myself, though I expect that to change as some of the more exciting components mature. The response to this thread has been predictable, given the wording of the original post and the strong opinions that free software developers often hold regarding their toolset. A similar argument would surely ensue if someone proposed that all Debian developers use Subversion for source code management, for example. Manoj's analogy with human language, while dripping with sarcasm, is apt. The reality of the situation is much less controversial. If a Debian maintainer finds it useful to manage their translations in Rosetta, then they can do that today, as a matter of individual choice. If they or a future maintainer of the same package prefers to manage the translations by hand, they can do that, and never touch Rosetta. Launchpad is a collection of tools intended to promote more efficient collaboration on the development of free software, and if it is to succeed, it will be because individuals choose to use it, not because any organization requires that they do so. As for licensing, some code has already been released as open source, and Canonical has made commitments to do more of the same in the future. Anyone with specific questions about Launchpad is welcome to ask them on the Launchpad mailing list if they want authoritative answers: http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad -- - mdz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
