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

[Hamish Moffatt]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 11:03:37AM +0000, Floris Bruynooghe wrote:
> Sure, don't blame volunteers for not doing their work.  I've got some
> work too that I haven't done for ages.  But I can't help to notice
> some points:
> 
> a. The package was in Ubuntu universe you said, so it shouldn't have
>    been her/his job to work on it afaik.

I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean it is not their job to
maintain it in Debian? Yes that's true, there is no automatic
expectation that a Debian developer contributing to Ubuntu will
contribute those same packages to Debian.

However it would be useful and welcome of course.

> 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.

I think ideally everything would go through Debian first. This probably
isn't realistic as Ubuntu has their own goals and release schedule which
they need to be responsible for, rather than depending on volunteer
Debian maintainers.

Now, as for packages which do exist only in Ubuntu.. is it a good idea
to port those wholesale to Debian (as we might do in the name of
Utnubu)? Or would it be better if those packages had maintainers
directly in Debian, who might start with the Ubuntu package and then
perhaps evolve from there?


Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish at debian.org> <hamish at cloud.net.au>