OT - Re: [Utnubu-discuss] porting pyalsaaudio from Utnubu

[Stephan Hermann]

Good Afternoon,

On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 12:49 +0100, Philipp Kern wrote:
> On Nov 19, 2005, at 12:03, Floris Bruynooghe wrote:
> > b. Is this an indication that the Ubuntu development is not working
> >    properly?  What I mean is that Ubuntu pulls unstable from Debian
> >    normally, so I would expect the way to get something in Ubuntu is
> >    to get it in Debian.  Only with the exception of some very specific
> >    things that Ubuntu want's to move on with.  Thus it would be
> >    beneficial for Ubuntu developers to work on Debian.  However if the
> >    Ubuntu model discourages the maintaining of the packages in Debian
> >    I think there must be something wrong, or maybe Ubuntu isn't as
> >    beneficial to Debian as was hoped it would be.
> 
> Well. The Ubuntu Masters of the Universe do not generally see their  
> job in getting packages into Debian, too. Some of them bother to file  
> a RFP/ITP in Debian, but as most of them are no DDs they rely on  
> support of Debian developers. On the other hand there are universe  
> uploaders which do only upload to Ubuntu and do not seem to bother  
> about Debian at all.

Well, the first statement is not the real truth.
We, as MOTUs, are discussing the issues to get as many packages as
possible back to Debian. You're right, when you say, that many MOTUs are
not DD or DMs, so it's really hard to bring new packages into Debian.

It is our goal, we discussed it now several times during MOTU meetings,
to get, as I said, as many patches, packages, whatever back to Debian.
But there is as well a little, but not unimportant problem. 

1. We need people in the Debian world, who will do the upload and/or
maintaining of the packages we build and push into Ubuntu. 
2. The communication between Debian Developer/Debian Maintainer is
somehow very difficult. Actually you won't get any answers to requests
or questions at all, or someone is mailing you, but somehow you can't
reply to him, because he refuses to accept mail, only mails to dbts is
accepted, which is sometimes more then annoying.
3. MOTUs is volunteering work, we have as well our normal jobs, and in
our sparetime we're doing this work. Sometimes there is no time to deal
with two distributions at the same time...and then we have the problem
again.

That's why, actually the MOTUs, are relying on the work and efford of
the Utnubu project, which we all appreciate. Thx for your great work. 

> 
> Universe looks more like uploading new packages directly into it  
> instead of first adding them to Debian and syncing back. It would be  
> Debian's task, in this case Utnubu's, to setup something with syncs  
> such additions in Ubuntu back into Debian. It's just that those new  
> people who actually want to help do not care too much about Debian  
> just because they don't use it. Please don't read that as an  
> accusation, I understand why you stick to the "it's my job to add  
> those to Ubuntu universe".

This is another problem. Ubuntu is faster in the workflow of getting new
packages into the archives. Regarding this, and thinking of 6 months of
a development cycle, it's sometimes really hard to wait for the Debian
way. I had this e.g. with gajim. One of the upstream maintainers is as
well Debian maintainer of this package. But before Debians packages was
released (0.8.2) we finally pushed it into Ubuntu much faster then
Debian. This happens most of the time, but after the next open
development cycle we will try to merge or sync the Debian packages
again, so that the delta between Ubuntu and Debian is very small.

I, speaking for myself now, would like to have a better contact to some
Debian Maintainers/Debian Developers, who can help me to bring more of
new Ubuntu stuff into Debian. If it's after Ubuntu or just before, but
it has to be faster then normal :)

After all, with some Maintainers of Debian and/or Debian Developers I
have a good relationship and with them I'm working very closely.

To sum up...we, the MOTUs, are needing your help to push more of our
patches/packages back to Debian. And I really appreaciate your Utnubu
work.

Regards,

\sh