Hello, >Encouraging collaboration between Debian and Ubuntu seems like a good >thing to me since there is a lot of work/code re-use and people overlap >between these projects.
it is to me too :) >However what is not clear to me from the discussion is what the >differences ought to be, and if there are contexts where collaboration >and merging things with Ubuntu is not a good idea for Debian. Merging of bugfixes and build fixes from Ubuntu, this is what I mean >Establishing those boundaries and clarifying what we believe may help >people who are involved in both Debian and Ubuntu to guide their actions >when wearing different hats. Indeed, but this isn't a decision that eventually a DPL has to make. I would expect CTTE or some similar team to vote on this, and as DPL I would not expose my view, to not pose any risk of flaming/changing people's mindset on the topic. >Answers may also help us to understand what you as future DPL believe >what Debian should be going forward. If you ask specific technical things, this is now that DPL role is about, if you ask about directions, I'm ok with an answer :) >May I ask the nominees to share their thoughts on this? I'm happy to answer this, since I'm not DPL, I'll share my personal opinions on this matter >- Ubuntu uses Snap and the Snap Store, is that something which Debian > should adopt as part of the improved collaboration with Ubuntu? no for me, but I admit having snaps for special cases such as firefox/thunderbird is indeed a smart/fast/good idea, specially to avoid backporting of new releases/toolchain to stable releases Again, CTTE is the best team to decide on this. >- Ubuntu has a different system installer than Debian, is merging them > within scope? why should it be? Distro can live with their own specific installer, with no issues at all. At some point, if people wants to have one single installer, the teams can join together, share patches, create one common repo between Debian and Ubuntu, but this is a decision that DPL has no power to take, fortunately >- Ubuntu is aligned with corporate/governmental interests that can have > a preference for non-GPL software. What are the concerns > collaborating along that effort? I'm thinking about replacing > CoreUtils with UUtils, GCC with Clang, GnuPG with Seqoia etc. Again, CTTE for this. As clang maintainer, I might have an idea about it (and the idea is that I would like gcc to keep being the default). (and the answer is no to all, but if CTTE wants to adopt some of all of them, I'm strongly fine with it) If you want me to say that GPL is better than other licenses, I won't do it. I personally don't like tivoization issues (hey GPL-3!) in my $dailyjob, and for this reason we keep using old unpatched versions or forks of essential tools, and this is something that corporate companies have to deal with, so MIT/GPL-2 is usually my best choice w.r.t. licensing. Also, if Ubuntu chooses some DFSG licensing, I don't see any issue in Debian having them in main. Are we saying that there are First class and Second class DFSG licenses? Do we want to go down that rabbit hole? I don't. In this case, ftpmasters should be the best people/team to speak with, not DPL >- Ubuntu is generally more relaxed about copyright licensing and > software freedom perspective than Debian, and Ubuntu includes and make > use of more non-free content than what is in Debian. Is collaborating > on expanding that in scope for Debian? Ubuntu has restricted, multiverse, Debian has non-free. I don't see much differences, but I don't see/think anybody ever wanted to do such a thing. >- Ubuntu doesn't support some architectures/ports that we have in > Debian, and Ubuntu support/assume some CPU features that Debian > doesn't. Is harmonizing the set of support in scope? I don't get if you want less Debian archs, or more Ubuntu architectures, but to me looks like a no (and this is something that buildd/admins should decide eventually, not DPL). >- Ubuntu has a fixed time-based release schedule, as that something we > should adopt? I like fixed releases (not strictly fixed, but some sort of timeline is good for people in general). but the decision on this has to be made by Release Team. To summarize, as DPL I wouldn't answer to any of these questions, because fortunately Debian already has specific teams to deal with them. thanks, Gianfranco
