[Pkg-running-devel] Bug#789875: subsurface: FTBFS in experimental

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 04:40:43PM +0200, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> On Wed, 2015-08-26 at 13:40 +0300, Lubomir I. Ivanov wrote:
> > your approach for convincing is offensive and unwise.
> Well if upstreams are effectively hostile against core paradigms of the
> FLOSS community, it must expect that people won't be happy with it.

Some of us have expressed our dismay with the way distributions work these
days. I used to be the CTO of a distribution company (SuSE). One of the
other outspoken Subsurface developers on this topic (and the guy who
started Subsurface) also has some background with Linux, though he wasn't
ever involved in a distribution...

He actually talked about this at the DebConf in Portland last year:
http://gensho.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2014/debconf14/webm/QA_with_Linus_Torvalds.webm

But let's get real here. We are not "hostile against core paradigms of the
FLOSS community". The hybris in writing things like that is actually kinda
funny. We disagree with the more extreme people in some distributions.

The catholic church had the crusaders, Islam has ISIS, the open source
community has their extremists. Neither of those extremist groups speak
for the whole community. You do not speak for the open source community.
I don't either. Neither do I claim to do so.

> > as a peace of software it now no longer obeys the Linux distribution
> > rules; it's setting a bad example at the expense of not being
> > available everywhere at anytime in the ecosystem.
> Being not available is not the problem by itself. There's many software
> which is not packaged for Debian.
> The problem is when you have projects which intentionally work against
> some of the base principles of open source software, as here: the
> apparently expressed wish of upstream to be under fully control of the
> program (like being the only place where it's been distributed, people
> not adapting it without renaming, etc.)

I politely asked that if you fork it, fork it with a different name.
Just like the Debian community would ask me to use a different name if I
created a derived distribution that included proprietary software. So you
are telling me "do as I say, don't do as I do"?

And again, your definition of "base principles of open source" may not be
shared by a lot of people in the open source community.

> > otherwise, why would you even care if some odd divelog software is no
> > longer distributed by distro X?
> It's like when DLRS manufacturers bring out a new mount system... they
> promise you everything that this will be *their* system for the future.
> People start to invest (money) in it,.. and not rarely it happened that
> the manufacturer changed the mount some years afterwards.
> 
> The point is:
> People "invested" in subsurface, in the sense that they stored all
> their data in it,... and part of the decision for that may have been
> the believe that subsurface acts like any other typical sane open
> source project - in this example: not trying to keep distros from
> properly packaging software.
> 
> If the subsurface people would have said from the beginning:
> "This is our nice fancy new diving log software. Use it, but beware
> that we want to keep full control (unless you fork) and in 2 years
> we'll try to prevent distros from packaging."
> than I guess many people (at least myself) would have never used it in
> the first place.

I'm sorry we mislead you. I don't quite understand how we mislead you. I
don't quite understand how data in our open XML format is similar to
spending money on a DLSR - but I guess we have by now well established
that we are talking past each other.

Subsurface is open source, continues to be open source. It has an active
community of developers and runs on many different OSs and platforms.
Our data format is open, our sources are open source under the GPLv2, no
one is taking anything from you.

We have asked SPECIFICALLY Debian to stop providing an out-dated version
of Subsurface to its users as that caused confusion and problems for our
users and support burdon for us. Debian was unwilling to follow our
choices of open source components that we used. So we asked Debian to drop
bundling Subsurface since we provide a version of Subsurface which a diver
who happens to run Debian and wants to use Subsurface can install.

Here's the funny thing. There aren't a lot of options for a diver looking
for a decent open source dive log. But there are a TON of options for a
diver looking for an OS that supports her needs. And the numbers that we
have clearly show that a tiny fractions of divers seem to think that
Debian is their best choice. And the audience for which Subsurface is
being developed is divers, not Debian maintainers.

> On Wed, 2015-08-26 at 08:54 +0200, Christian PERRIER wrote:
> > For sure, I well understand that redisigning Subsurface to use a
> > different storage backend is not something one can reasonably 
> > considerbut maybe having this as an option could be nice.
> Actually, the XML backend already exists (or did so?). I even think
> it's the only usable backend in the most recent version of the
> official[0] Debian package.

XML still is the default storage format. The git backend was added in
preparation for cloud storage of dive data, which is in return one of the
key features needed before it makes sense to have an Android application.

See, we are interested in what divers would like - and a full fledged
Android app has been very high on the list of things people ask us for...

And now I would have to tell people in the Android store "seamlessly
exchange data with Subsurface 4.5 on the desktop (except Subsurface 4.5 as
shipped by Debian)". That's ridiculous.

You go continue and enjoy the paradigm shifts of your FLOSS world and
revel in your freedoms. In the meantime we are trying to give a open
source option to divers who actually just want their software to work.

> > I do share Christoph's feeling about the "raison
> > d'être"
> > of distros and, well, I'm never happy when this is not well 
> > understood....
> Well I guess it's perfectly fine and politically simply the best and
> only choice to throw out packages that behave bad,... such hostility
> against distributions cannot be accepted as it threatens the FLOSS
> model at whole.

Oh get off your soap box. You are sounding ridiculous by now.

> And IMHO neither distributions nor the community should accept projects
> which call themselves open/free, but basically demand full control and
> renaming/forking when one starts to change bits of the "experience"[1].

Demand? I have politely asked to respect our wishes. I can't stop you from
shipping a pile of dog poop and calling it Subsurface. All I did was ask.

Oh, and you did not "throw out a package that behaved bad". I ASKED that
the package be removed. I asked politely. And in return I received abusive
emails from a number of Debian maintainers. With personal attacks and
insults. True to Debian's reputation, I guess.

> The FLOSS philosophy isn't just about having some open source license,
> but on the other hand making it basically impossible to freely use
> software as people wish (in this case: properly packaged in
> distributions) with the small side node that people could always simply
> fork if they're not happy. That's the Oracle way of handling open
> source.

If by "properly packaged" you mean "broken and incompatible with upstream"
then yes, you are right. If by "freely use" you mean you can use the
software, modify and fork it (which is the definition of open source) then
no, you are wrong.

> So, right choice from Debian,... it's just a pity that all people who
> put their trust into subsurface are now kinda screwed.

They are screwed because Debian maintainers insist on removing features
and refuse to accept upstreams choice of libraries we want to depend on.
They are more than welcome to use the packages that we provide - or switch
to a more sanely run distribution.

I'm talking to the Fedora maintainer right now about getting Subsurface
packaged for Fedora 23.

> [1] Funny, btw, that this rule apparently only applies to downstreams.
> If such upstream does the very same, like subsurface changes the
> "experience" of libdivecomputer/etc. a rename is apparently not deemed
> necessary by them ;-)

Actually I talked to Jef (the libdivecomputer maintainer) about this and
we agreed that this should just be a branch of libdivecomputer, not a
fork. The repository from which you can get our version is named libdc
instead of libdivecomputer in order to avoid confusion, but it's still
just a branch in libdc - libdc master is the same as libdivecomputer
master. Ironically libdivecomputer is even hosted on my infrastructure.

And the moment Jef asks me to change the name I'll be more than happy to
do this. After all it's his project and I prefer to be polite to the
people who maintain the projects I engage with.

Which clearly is not the preferred way for Debian contributors to interact
with the projects they engage with.

Take care and enjoy your freedom

/D