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

[Floris Bruynooghe]

On Sun, Nov 20, 2005 at 12:27:31AM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> 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.

As I understood it the Ubuntu maintainer was employed to work on
Ubuntu (and I was assuming -maybe wrongly- by Canonical).  So I
thought they where only working on main, not universe.  I realise now
that I maybe was assuming too much.

> 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.

Good point, never thought about this one before.  Personally I was
expecting that of a Debian developer, but I guess you're right.  But I
can't help to regret it (and hence think some of the Debian-Ubuntu
relation is not ideal).

> > 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.

That's what I was trying to express, hence the "some very specific
things.." rare cases sentence.

> 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?

If the second doesn't happen it's Utnubu's attempt to do the first as
I understood (and I'd love to help but it doesn't look like this real
life is going to let me this academic year).

Floris

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