Ambivalence between Debian and Ubuntu
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| vainrveenr Aug 10, 2009 7:00 PM EDT |
A Heise story of almost exactly three months ago was published entitled 'Health Check: Ubuntu and Debian's special relationship'.
From the 'Irritations and diversions' section of this piece:
Quoting:Ubuntu is explicitly based on Debian, but this doesn't come without its problems. From the beginning Canonical, Ubuntu's holding company, employed a core of key Debian Developers. This created some jealousy among Debian Developers and some annoyance that energies were being diverted away from the Debian project. These irritations were compounded by a perception that the Ubuntu developers were not feeding back their changes, and that Canonical's own software projects such as Launchpad, were not being released under free software licenses. These issues came to a head at Debconf in 2006, when Shuttleworth and Ubuntu team members met with Debian Developers to discuss their concerns, and it was agreed that greater acknowledgement would be given to the Debian contribution to Ubuntu and to promote better communication between the two projects.( http://www.h-online.com/open/Health-Check-Ubuntu-and-Debian-... ) Following this quote were statements from Debian project leader Steve McIntyre concerning Ubuntu's ambivalent relationship with Debian. Indeed, three month's later there still remain very mixed responses to Shuttleworth's attempts to control and/or to "improve" Debian by modifying its recent development cycle revisions. One can readily see this in the responses to Shuttleworth's 'On cadence and collaboration' Debian Project posting, http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/08/threads.html#... The often-heated responses to Shuttleworth's posting here make fascinating reading, and they certainly confirm McIntyre's past observations regarding Ubuntu's ambivalent relationship with Debian! |
| tuxchick Aug 10, 2009 7:30 PM EDT |
Ow, headache from reading the http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/08/threads.html#... thread. It's worse than herds of cats. Can't think of what critter that would be, just something worse. |
| gus3 Aug 10, 2009 8:14 PM EDT |
Badgers? Wolverines? |
| caitlyn Aug 10, 2009 8:26 PM EDT |
Hyenas? Jackals? |
| tuxchick Aug 10, 2009 8:29 PM EDT |
Orcs! |
| ComputerBob Aug 10, 2009 8:48 PM EDT |
@vainrveenr, You wrote, Quoting:...Indeed, three month's later there still remain very mixed responses to Shuttleworth's attempts .... I'm pretty sure that you meant "three years later." |
| azerthoth Aug 10, 2009 8:56 PM EDT |
I just find it interesting that shuttleworth insists that upstream has a responsability to downstream to adjust its way of doing things to suit the needs of the downstream redistributor. Rather there is no onus upon upstream as it is not required that downstrem use only those packages. Downstream is more than able to insert its own pacakges, and with the wide breadth and dirth of contributions from this particular downstream to its upstream, the wish is hypocritical at best. To paraphrase Mr Shuttleworth, "We wish you to facilitate our leaching of your work, please adjust your schedules accordingly to synchronize with our timetables. This is to ensure that we have the ability to pull your work in a manner that is timely and beneficial to us." |
| tracyanne Aug 10, 2009 9:13 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's worse than herds of cats. Can't think of what critter that would be, just something worse. @TC Atheists |
| caitlyn Aug 10, 2009 10:08 PM EDT |
@TA: LOL. Probably so. |
| azerthoth Aug 10, 2009 10:24 PM EDT |
1 on religion, can I toss in a worse animal on politics? i.e. if you dont want me to intentionally offend you, its fairly easy to avoid unintentionally pushing my buttons. |
| caitlyn Aug 10, 2009 10:31 PM EDT |
I wouldn't have posted what TA posted, personally, but I did find it funny. I did worry about a TOS violation but I didn't want to churn things up. So, no, let's not make things worse... please. |
| tuxchick Aug 10, 2009 10:43 PM EDT |
Does anyone have any thoughts on Mark Shuttleworth's "cadence" wishes? I wish he wouldn't use such weirdo terminology becauae it sounds like marketing flack-speak. But it doesn't sound all that daft, once you wade past the thousands of excess words he uses to explain it. (Is that how he became wealthy, charging per-word?) I think Ubuntu gave Debian a much-needed kick in the behind; three years to get Sarge out the door was way too long. Debianers like to insist that nothing needs to be changed and Debian works fine, so perhaps it is in a state of perfect perfection and M. Shuttleworth should just go fly to the moon or something. |
| tracyanne Aug 10, 2009 11:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:I did worry about a TOS violation but I didn't want to churn things up For Giant Invisible Friend in the sky's sake, You yanks are ridiculous. Atheists ARE harder to herd than cats, it's an indisputable fact, unlike cats they can't agree on anything. Cats, at least will all head towards the food. |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 12:00 AM EDT |
What TC said. I also want to point out the following. 1. Debian devs can't do internal security back-ports forever, and expect to keep their user base. TC is right, three years for Sarge was too long. 2. Anyone can criticize; Mark Shuttleworth is willing to commit resources of his company to help remedy the issues he enumerates. It makes business sense: he sees a long-term benefit to Canonical and Ubuntu from this investment. The short-term benefit to Debian should be obvious. 3. Ultimately, I think his reason for creating Ubuntu is valid. The Debian Social Contract's focus is on the freedom of the user, but what good is the freest system in the world if only a trained sysadmin can use it? Don't laugh; one such sysadmin told me in 2000 that her background made Debian a lot easier to use. The Debian project was seven years old, and the devs were still willing to make Debian an arcane system. That reality scared me off of Debian for a long time. The Ubuntu project is working to make the system commonly usable, and in that respect is more successful than The Best-Selling OS In The World. Yeah, where Microsoft can send out its PR hacks to brag about how usable Windows is, Canonical is delivering Debian spice cake with Ubuntu cream frosting. After using Ubuntu Netbook Remix for over two months, I admit I'm pondering how to convince my mother to switch from Fedora 11 to Ubuntu. Bearing in mind "the riff-raff" will have long-term benefits for Debian, as well. 4. In fairness to Mr. Shuttleworth, he is an executive, and he writes like one. One of the lessons I learned in my Corporate Communications class is that the impact of criticism can be softened with praise. Bearing that in mind, I probably would have written a similar tome. And I think "cadence" is an excellent term to convey what he's suggesting: enough common habits that each derives benefit from the work of the other, even though the objectives are different. At least he didn't use the term "synergy." So go ahead, call me a fanboi if you must, but after years of being jaded towards pre-packaged systems, Ubuntu Netbook Remix has made a believer of me. |
| azerthoth Aug 11, 2009 12:05 AM EDT |
So if I read that correctly TC, your saying that quantity of releases trumps quality of releases over any given period of time. Debian ships when its right, Ubuntu ships on the date, right or wrong. Bringing up package age date and not minding a few glitches here and there, like Ubuntu, then running Debian testing or Sid will get you packages 6 months to a year ahead of Ubuntu. Yup I can see where Ubuntu has improved Debian and given them a kick in the butt. @TA, if you insist on us "yanks" being overly sensitive, I dont want to hear a word about sexual discrimination or a hiccup about other people politics out of you. If you feel free, as an acknowledged face of the LXer team to toss the TOS on one topic, you have no place or right to comment or enforce any other piece of it. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 12:11 AM EDT |
Quoting: The short-term benefit to Debian should be obvious. The long term benefit should also be obvious. Debian is in danger of stagnating, of becoming irrelevant, I believe. Quoting:Don't laugh; one such sysadmin told me in 2000 .................................... scared me off of Debian for a long time. I totally argree, I was told by an experienced Debian user in 1999 not to try Debian, as it would put me off Linux, that I should use mandrake, instead. Good advice, as it turned out. I did try Debian, when I thought I had an understanding of Linux, that experience really was scary. Quoting:The Ubuntu project is working to make the system commonly usable, and in that respect is more successful than The Best-Selling OS In The World. Indeed. |
| tuxchick Aug 11, 2009 12:18 AM EDT |
No azerthoth, I think it's a human thing to work better with deadlines and rules. Taking longer doesn't necessarily mean that more work is being done, just the same work slower. A three year-old Linux is not all that useful just from being so old; older is not always better. For one thing it presents a special set of security problems. Some applications, for example Postfix 1.something, get to a point in their development where supporting and patching them is no longer viable and so they undergo significant rewrites, and the older version is deprecated. The very idea that a Linux distro can somehow be frozen in time and polished to a state of near-perfection is unrealistic. Everything, especially kernels, advance and change too rapidly. A two-year release cycle sounds feasible, anything longer than that is going to be too far behind. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 12:19 AM EDT |
Quoting:@TA, if you insist on us "yanks" being overly sensitive, I dont want to hear a word about sexual discrimination or a hiccup about other people politics out of you. If you feel free, as an acknowledged face of the LXer team to toss the TOS on one topic, you have no place or right to comment or enforce any other piece of it. @az. please be calm, the subject was what's worse than herding cats. I supplied the something. End of subject. Second, I've never pulled anyone up on a TOS, unless they happen to be spammers, and I likely won't either, unless I see such immaturities asactual threats, or verballing. We're all mature people. As for sexual discrimination if that's the subject, I speak to it, but don't expect me to be offended by it. I seriously don't give a rats what other people think, in that respect, where I'm concerned. |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 12:25 AM EDT |
Quoting:Debian ships when its right, Ubuntu ships on the date, right or wrong.That's the thinking that caused a three-year wait for Sarge. How do you define "right"? |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 12:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:How do you define "right"? By all agreeing that this is right, and anything before or after that is wrong. Or by a dictator for life defining it. Which ever, when you do agree, you stick to it. The problem is Debian doesn't actually seem to have a definition. Canonical does. |
| azerthoth Aug 11, 2009 12:41 AM EDT |
Canonical does? Right has a predetermined predictable date? I prefer a 3 year wait for rock solid to every 6 months rocky at best, that fairly well sums up the difference between Debian right and Ubuntu right. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 12:46 AM EDT |
As I said it's a matter of definition, and Debian doesn't seem to have a definition. I might point out here that mandriva and Fedora are also on a 6 month release cycle, as are a number of other distributions. and given the rate of change of FOSS applications 6 months seems a lot closer to "right ", at least to me, than 3 years. |
| caitlyn Aug 11, 2009 1:37 AM EDT |
This week I reviewed Pardus. The article is on the front page of LXer.com now. I found it to be easier to install than Ubuntu. I found it more user friendly in most respects than Ubuntu. I found their graphical tools to be very intuitive. It also had way fewer bugs than a typical Ubuntu release and no show stopping bugs. I can point to a handful of things I like better about Ubuntu but overall, if I had to pick a distro to offer a newcomer, right now Pardus would be my choice. In fairness it used to be Mandriva. It never was Ubuntu. I think a lot of Ubuntu's success is hype and marketing. They are very good at both of those. I think the 8.04 LTS release has turned into something excellent once the first maintenance release was out. The problem with Ubuntu's six month come hell or high water releases is that they just can't get everything right in that time frame. I've come to believe that annual releases, and ones that can be pushed back a little to fix bugs, are the way to go. OpenSUSE, Pardus, and VectorLinux or on annual schedules and frankly, right now, any of the above work better for me than Ubuntu Jaunty. I do agree that Ubuntu gave Debian a much needed push. That doesn't mean that Ubuntu can or should be able to dictate to Debian. The two projects have very different goals, or so it seems to me. |
| caitlyn Aug 11, 2009 1:41 AM EDT |
@tracyanne: I think it is important to remember that people are really sensitive about religion, politics, and any form of bigotry or discrimination you care to mention. That none of it bothers you personally is fine. I still think the TOS has a place and I think azerthoth has a very valid point. I'm not an atheist. Did I get offended by your "Giant Invisible Friend in the sky" line? No, I can respect people who want to characterize G-d that way and it doesn't really bother me. I just don't have to agree. OTOH, I know a lot of people who would dismiss you and anything you have to say after that. Tromping on people's sensitivities doesn't make for effective communication. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 2:28 AM EDT |
@caitlyn, this started, with an off hand remark, that should have offended no one, but which was entirely on topic, "what was worse than cats to herd", someone made a big to do about it. I responded, perhaps I shouild have left it alone, but i didn't, I appologise for not doing so. However the original comment did not deserve the attention it got. PM for the rest. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 11, 2009 3:50 AM EDT |
Quoting:Cats, at least will all head towards the food. Nope. A single cat will. Multiple cats at the same time won't :-) Quoting:TC is right, three years for Sarge was too long. Quoting:Debian is in danger of stagnating, of becoming irrelevant, I believe. Why keep beating that dead horse? Sarge is old. It's not even supported anymore. Both Etch and Lenny shipped in under two years. Squeeze is slated to be released even sooner. Also, since Etch there have been intermediate releases that provide updated kernels, drivers and X server (Etch-and-a-half, Lenny-and-a-half). That brings the mean time between Debian releases to less than a year apart. Debian isn't stagnating. It's accelerating. It has been since 2005. Stop beating the Sarge horse. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 7:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:Cats, at least will all head towards the food. Don't know about your cats Sander, but you open a tin of cat food, in our house, and all three of our cats come a runnin, and the dogs better get out of the way. |
| tracyanne Aug 11, 2009 7:30 AM EDT |
Quoting:Also, since Etch there have been intermediate releases that provide updated kernels, drivers and X server (Etch-and-a-half, Lenny-and-a-half). That brings the mean time between Debian releases to less than a year apart. If that's true, why is there all this belly aching about Mark Shuttleworth wanting certainty of release times from Debian. But I think I've answered the question, he wants certainty. |
| jdixon Aug 11, 2009 9:01 AM EDT |
> If you feel free, as an acknowledged face of the LXer team to toss the TOS on one topic, you have no place or right to comment or enforce any other piece of it. From what I've seen, I believe Sander makes most of the TOS calls. > I did try Debian, when I thought I had an understanding of Linux, that experience really was scary. Debain? Scary? OK, maybe using Slackware prepared me, but I never found it so. Impossible to update over dialup, yes. Scary, no. > ...and in that respect is more successful than The Best-Selling OS In The World. Talk about damning with faint praise. :) |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 9:36 AM EDT |
@jdixon: Try keeping the point in context, and it will stop being faint praise: Quoting:The Ubuntu project is working to make the system commonly usable, and in that respect is more successful than The Best-Selling OS In The World. Yeah, where Microsoft can send out its PR hacks to brag about how usable Windows is, Canonical is delivering Debian spice cake with Ubuntu cream frosting. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 11, 2009 9:57 AM EDT |
@tracyanne: I have only one cat. When it has to choose between food or pwning another cat (there are many cats in my neighborhood) then the other cats had better run :-)Quoting:But I think I've answered the question, he wants certainty. Yup. And the funny thing is, even this entire Debian time-based freeze doesn't give him that. It only ensures a time to freeze, not a time to release. After the freeze all the RC bugs still need to be fixed and that can take quite some time too. And that time varies. A lot. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 11, 2009 10:01 AM EDT |
Quoting:From what I've seen, I believe Sander makes most of the TOS calls. Only in threads I am not involved in. If I am involved I will ask someone else like Scott to review the thread. |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 10:02 AM EDT |
Like the Slashdot policy: You can moderate, or you can discuss, but not both. |
| bigg Aug 11, 2009 10:02 AM EDT |
> And that time varies. A lot. Which it should, at least for those of us who expect our OS to work properly. |
| tuxchick Aug 11, 2009 10:52 AM EDT |
Quoting: Debian isn't stagnating. It's accelerating. It has been since 2005. Stop beating the Sarge horse. Oh right, Debian is perfect and nobody should point out obvious correlations, such as Debian's newly-found motivation to speed things up and not waste quite so much time on bickering, pandering to trolls and psychos, and wheel-spinning, which coincidentally happened after the launch of the upstart Ubuntu. Libranet's success was because it was 'Debian with a friendly face.' Imagine that, people prefer friendly to hostile psycho. It's too bad that Libranet was discontinued; I doubt that it would have been as popular as Ubuntu because they didn't have the funding and marketing muscle, but they were doing well and would have been a strong popular distro. Without the competition from the likes of Libranet and Ubuntu Debian would be even more bogged in their own weird little self-obsessed world, release times getting longer and longer, and devs and other supporters with normal personalities fleeing to projects that value courtesy, sanity, and getting things done. Like Ubuntu.... |
| flufferbeer Aug 11, 2009 11:36 AM EDT |
@TC,
Right on! (I stopped wading through that never-ending Debian dev "cadence" threadlist way long ago.) Some big 19th Century German diplomat was supposed to have said a famous quote "Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made" This quote directly reminds me of all the back-and-forth chewing, spitting, stuffing and whatever else the Debian Development community has to do before each distro version comes out. In terms of a Linux distro being updated and maintained without all this hacking going on, some of us would MUCH rather prefer seeing the method used by effective benevolent dictators such as Slackware's PatV and MEPIS's Warren Woodford. I myself was one of those who has been turned off in the past from Debian, and much rather prefers Ubuntu's clean-up and user-support. My own 2c on this. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 11, 2009 5:05 PM EDT |
Quoting:Debian's newly-found motivation to speed things up and not waste quite so much time on bickering, pandering to trolls and psychos, and wheel-spinning, which coincidentally happened after the launch of the upstart Ubuntu. ... which was back in 2004. So, since you apparently agree with me here that Debian has been cleaning up and speeding up since then, why keep beating the Sarge horse? If you want to criticize Debian, please find something more recent and relevant than "Sarge took three years to release". |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 5:34 PM EDT |
@Sander: Without the external motivation from Ubuntu, would Debian have ever snapped out of their "reach the unreachable star" mentality and released Sarge? |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 11, 2009 5:47 PM EDT |
@gus: Does it matter? They snapped out. As a result, long release times are longer a valid criticism against Debian today. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 11, 2009 6:03 PM EDT |
Now you've all got my head ringing with the sound of Elvis singing "The Impossible Dream" ... are we making that the official Linux theme song? |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 8:43 PM EDT |
No, it's already the theme song of the Microsoft firewall developers. |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 10:41 PM EDT |
@Sander: I was speculating, and you're right to call me on it. The question I asked, cannot be answered. However, my ulterior motive was to point out that Ubuntu's arrival on the scene was followed fairly quickly by the release of Sarge. There were lots of comments all over the Internet, asking for the weather reports from Hell that day. I know, it's a fallacy to assume post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but that doesn't mean it's always false. Add to that the continued counter-protests from Debian against Ubuntu, and I have to wonder if maybe Ubuntu has highlighted some kind of major flaw in the Debian development model. More ignorant speculation. Maybe I really am a fanboi. |
| azerthoth Aug 11, 2009 11:38 PM EDT |
There is a quick check to discover if debian stable/release has any effect on Ubuntu at all. How many packages from Debian stable does Ubuntu actually use? IIRC and I may be wrong, not many, if any at all. So riddle me this, if thats the case then what does Debians release cycle have to do with Ubuntu releases at all? If that truly is the case, then all Shuttleworth really doing other than promoting his concept of release right or wrong under the guise of cooperation. The reason it seems reasonable on the face is that few people seem to be connecting the dots on what packages and wherre they come from that Ubuntu uses that Debian provides. Curious. |
| gus3 Aug 11, 2009 11:45 PM EDT |
From the Wikipedia explanation:Quoting:Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch: both distributions use Debian's deb package format and package management tools (APT and Synaptic). Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other, however, and sometimes .deb packages may need to be rebuilt from source to be used in Ubuntu. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 12, 2009 12:47 AM EDT |
Quoting:So riddle me this, if thats the case then what does Debians release cycle have to do with Ubuntu releases at all? My best guess would be that Ubuntu would like to use Debian testing instead of Debian unstable as a source for Ubuntu. At least for the LTS releases. Ubuntu LTS would come out a few months after the Debian freeze, at which point Debian testing is already very stable. |
| krisum Aug 12, 2009 1:41 AM EDT |
Quoting: These irritations were compounded by a perception that the Ubuntu developers were not feeding back their changesI find this one somewhat amusing since we see the same complaints w.r.t debian by upstream projects (e.g. the openssl fiasco). I think the feeding should be done via the route of the real upstream project. Even so I have seen many ubuntu patches being picked up by debian packages, so this complaint is probably nothing more than jealousy. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 2:19 AM EDT |
@sander and all, if that being the case, shouldnt and doesnt it make more sense for downsteam to change and adapt than upstream to be forced to change and accommodate. At a glance it does seem that way to me. |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 2:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:shouldnt and doesnt it make more sense for downsteam to change and adapt than upstream to be forced to change and accommodateSure, if you're Microsoft. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 12, 2009 2:31 AM EDT |
@krisum: I think you're mis-remembering the OpenSSL fiasco. The Debian maintainers proposed the patch to upstream but they rejected it. But upstream did say that they didn't see any technical problems with the change, just that they didn't want to make the change just to shut up valgrind. So, Debian incorporated the chaneg in it's own package. @azerthoth: Not necessarily. If downstream makes a good suggestion, why not implement it? Patches to source code flow from downstream to upstream all the time. Why not "pacthes" to the development process? I don't see Debian being "forced" to change here. Apparently they see benefits to the change else they would not have implemented it. |
| krisum Aug 12, 2009 2:34 PM EDT |
Quoting: I think you're mis-remembering the OpenSSL fiasco.No I am not. Quoting: The Debian maintainers proposed the patch to upstream but they rejected it.No patch was ever proposed upstream so there is no question of rejection. Do you have any evidence of this? Only a change was discussed on mailing list to which different people responded differently (e.g. one expressed the opinion that it may be removed if it helps, while another asked to build with -DPURIFY) -- there was no review or submission of the patch. In any case it was to serve as an example and I have seen many debian packages with patches (for upstream bugs) that have not been submitted upstream. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 3:19 PM EDT |
@gus3, so your saying that if LinuxMint went to a five and a half month cycle they would be justified in doing there best to pressure Ubuntu to modify their schedule to suit? Not only ask, but expect and throw tantrums when they dont? With the added side effect of that then Shuttleworth would be asking Debian to adjust to a different schedule, employing the same false logic that he is employing currently. Now lets say that all of this hypothetical situation did come to pass, and then a popular LinuxMint spin off subsequently decided that an 8 month release cycle suited them better and made the upstream request to change established practice. Do you see the issue of demanding that upstream change their release practices, especially when the packages your pulling from upstream have not one single thing to do with the packages that you are requesting they change their practices on? In the case of Ubuntu in particular, Debians stable releases have not one single thing to do with any Ubuntu release. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 3:33 PM EDT |
@Sander
Quoting: My best guess would be that Ubuntu would like to use Debian testing instead of Debian unstable as a source for Ubuntu. At least for the LTS releases. Ubuntu LTS would come out a few months after the Debian freeze, at which point Debian testing is already very stable. One problem with this thought, Ubuntu releases every six months, for them to use Testing as a base for LTS they would essentially be releasing the same release as the one prior to LTS. Being that Debian goes into package freeze on testing several months prior to a stable release. |
| krisum Aug 12, 2009 3:50 PM EDT |
I agree with Sander that there is quite some value for Debian in this approach. In any case something that is good for Ubuntu users is also of value for Debian and linux in general. I don't think the situation with Mint is anywhere comparable. Overall if Mark Shuttleworth's suggestion of getting major distros and major upstream projects in some synchronization is realized then it will be good for linux. |
| krisum Aug 12, 2009 3:56 PM EDT |
Quoting: shouldnt and doesnt it make more sense for downsteam to change and adapt than upstream to be forced to change and accommodateActually Debian's unpredictable release cycle was one of the major motivations for the Ubuntu "fork" rather than building on top of it, so I do not see how Ubuntu can change to unpredictable releases. Many Debian users started looking at Ubuntu for precisely this reason. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 4:29 PM EDT |
I dont disagree that the varying release schedule was a contributnig factor to the fork, or that people started looking towards Ubuntu for precisely the same reason (among others). What I do disagree with is putting pressure on upstream to address these issues. They knew where they came from, and why the fork, if Debian were to take on Ubuntu's policies then the only thing that would be left for Ubuntu is .... nothing but a name. Changing upstream when changes to upstream wont change downstream distribution one lick under the guise of cooperation is false logic. Shuttleworth is pushing his dream of lockstep standardization but phrasing it politely. The sad part is, he wants every to change to suit him but wont even consider making the same adjustments he is requesting of others. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2009 4:44 PM EDT |
I imagine that Ubuntu wants to draw on Debian Testing rather Unstable because that would result in the eventual Debian Stable and Ubuntu LTS having the same version of the kernel. Shuttleworth's contention is that having releases across the distro spectrum (including Fedora, Suse, etc.) that offer the same version of the kernel, and perhaps other packages as well, would help the whole FOSS ecosystem by providing at least the option of uniformity for a given release from many distros. I imagine that it's hard for both developers and hardware manufacturers to deal with the cacophany of distros in the Linux world, with the prospect of getting a given driver in a more-popular kernel a lot more enticing tnan the current state of affairs (many kernels being supported in many releases, all with potentially different versions of the same packages ...). I don't know if this is ever going to work, but I think a common kernel (or at least a very close one) for Debian and Ubuntu could only help with hardware configuration. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2009 4:48 PM EDT |
I do see the point that Debian doesn't want to be bound by a 2-year time frame to freeze Testing, but users could potentially benefit by knowing that Debian is at least on some kind of schedule, even if the time between freeze and release is not set. |
| krisum Aug 12, 2009 4:48 PM EDT |
As I said, overall Shuttleworth's ideas seem to be beneficial to linux as a whole IMO, so an opposition to change only because it will benefit Ubuntu makes little sense. There have been several DDs (non-Ubuntu employees) also expressing the opinion that it will benefit their packages since they can plan better for the features/version for the time-based freeze, so its not a one-way street as it has been made out to be.Quoting: The sad part is, he wants every to change to suit him but wont even consider making the same adjustments he is requesting of others.In the current context I have yet to see anything reasonable being asked of Ubuntu. Shuttleworth has said that he is willing to either provide resources to meet the december freeze or push ubuntu release by a quarter but not both, so it cannot be said that he is not willing to make adjustment (in fact, now that even one of the RMs has stated that december freeze seems unrealistic, Shuttleworth may be forced to take the second option). |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 12, 2009 5:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:One problem with this thought, Ubuntu releases every six months, for them to use Testing as a base for LTS they would essentially be releasing the same release as the one prior to LTS. In package versions, yes. But the LTS base would be a whole lot more stable. The difference between Debian testing and unstable is about 10 days when the release nears. After all, Debian testing is just the packages from Debian stable that have no new bugs reported against them in 10 days and which have all dependencies satisfied. By the time a Debian release nears, all dependencies will have been satfisfied and few new bugs are filed. So, the Ubuntu release prior to LTS would be based on Debian near it's freeze, while the LTS itself would be based on testing just prior to release. It would mean that Ubuntu LTS has a stability that is pretty much as good as a Debian release. Just what you'd want for an LTS. Also, don't forget that Ubuntu sources several large packages directly from upstream and not from Debian. Gnome for example comes directly from gnome.org and not from Debian. So these versions will change between LTS and it's prior release. |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 6:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:Do you see the issue of demanding that...I see nobody making any demands in the "cadence" debate. I see a proposal. Mark Shuttleworth can do nothing to force the hands of the Debian developers; they can accept. reject, or counter-propose (I won't lay odds on which). Contrast Microsoft, who will threaten you with court action if you don't abide by their interpretation of their licensing terms. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 6:41 PM EDT |
On the kernel issue being standardized, there is already an accepted standard kernel with regard to the corp-rat environment, that being 2.6.18 . The standard kernel argument that is being used here is rather the one of the latest greatest most bling kernel which happens to change with some regularity. Even on a 6 month release cycle the differernce of a few weeks in either direction can vary the kernel by 3 major revisions and/or multiple minor revisions. Kernel argument == moot. Gus can you tie EULA restrictions to release dates somehow? That might make that part of your argument relevant. Sander I see the point and while it does make sense in that light, other than a few GUI click the pretty button configuration utilities and a paint job, whats to sell Ubuntu LTS over Debian stable? Debian Stable is notoriously more stable than anything that has ever come from canononical. |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 7:11 PM EDT |
Quoting:Gus can you tie EULA restrictions to release dates somehow? That might make that part of your argument relevant.The only thing in common is that you are using hyperbole to attribute behavior to Ubuntu/Canonical that would clearly not be hyperbole, but rather Standard Operating Procedure, were Microsoft the subject at hand. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2009 7:18 PM EDT |
2.6.18 has been very, very good to me. I believe that was the kernel in Debian Etch, PCLinuxOS 2007 and RHEL 5. I'm sure that wasn't planned ... but how did it happen? |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 12, 2009 7:19 PM EDT |
Who among us hasn't seen a huge bug in Debian Stable that, due to the distro's "stability," will never be fixed? Same for Ubuntu ... |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 7:33 PM EDT |
That was around the time a filesystem corruption bug cropped up in 2.6.19. Word got out real fast that 2.6.18 was a safer bet. The first release of 2.6.20 was a new branch that release managers didn't want to use without broader testing. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.19... (Search for "subtle race".) |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 7:34 PM EDT |
gus, MS is not the subject at hand your the one who has tried to draw the correlation. The only one mind you, I think your prejudices are showing. Steven if you look closer you'll also see that t this point 2.6.18 also recieves the largest amount of backports. Many people just go with the flow or demand the latest greatest, but there is a standard and maintained that is out there, it may be unintentional but this is usually what ever RHEL is running at the time. Gentoo even keeps the backports to 2.6.18 current, there are others I am sure. |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 8:14 PM EDT |
Yes, I did bring Redmond into the conversation. I guess the point wasn't obvious enough. Microsoft "standards" change, on a regular basis (OfficeOpenXML, anyone?). For a long time, they didn't care, because they assumed they had a ring in the public's nose. In a way, they did, but the public revolted as soon as the resentment hit critical mass. Between the swiss-cheese security and questionable upgrade policies, it was only a matter of time... The FOSS philosophy is the complete opposite of that. My way, our way, no way, whatever. The limits of Linux's adaptability have yet to be discovered, and there's nothing in the pertinent GPL's to interfere with that process. Microsoft hands down mandates From On High, and demands that Windows users either toe the line or not use the software (but good luck getting your M$ tax back). FOSS negotiates. Sometimes rather boisterously, as this thread demonstrates. But even if two parties can't agree on whether A or B is more correct, neither party can stop the other from implementing A or B. Or both. Or neither. And so it is with the "cadence" debate. Shuttleworth has raised an issue, as he sees it, and proposed two possible solutions (both at Canonical's expense) to the Debian team. They can accept one, or the other, or tell him to Papa Oscar. But nobody in this dust-up can force anybody else's hand. As for my prejudices against Microsoft, I've never hidden them, at least on LXer. |
| azerthoth Aug 12, 2009 9:17 PM EDT |
That does claryify, thank you. My position on this remains relatively unswayed. The entire premise for mated release cycles between Debian and Ubuntu is based on false logic. If the two meet at an approximate 2 year cycle between Debian stable (or the package freeze leading to it) and Ubuntu LTS, then short of a paint job, Ubuntu LTS becomes superfluous. Debain enjoys a reputation on stability that Ubuntu does not. For Ubuntu to maintain relevance in that contest it has to accept the stability reputation that it has earned on its own and attempt to surpass Debian in other areas. The common kernel across distros, point moot, there is a corp-rat standard and Ubuntu has chosen to ignore it. Basing Ubuntu LTS on Debian pre stable freeze, point moot, Debain walks away with the stability crown nearly uncontested. Common package revisions across $DISTRO, both distro's lag behind even other binary distros. The whole of this is, Shuttleworth wishes a homogeneous across the board environment. If you wish to stick with the Microsoft analogy, they have proven that this creates a lesser product not a greater product. Linux greatest advantage is its diversity, where someone like Ubuntu can come along and challenge the norm. dragging others kicking and screaming along with them if they wish to meet the bar. The homogeneous environment can only work for the established players, as it never encourages others to break the mold and challenge pre concieved 'truths' ar rasies the technical bar to a new level. The whole of the argument is based upon false logic, that some will jump on the lemming bandwagon without examining the unintended or unrevealed consequences only goes to prove that there really is a sucker born every minute. The thing here is, is that there are a lot of dots that need to be connected to see the story. Getting outside of the cadence thread and seeing what he has said at other points on both similar and seemingly unrelated items shows his goals for canononcial and ubuntu. Achieve a percieved conclusive market share, and then hold on to it, period. Never forget he is a business man first and benefactor second. That he tries to convince everyone else that his view is for the greater good of linux in general shows he is either more shrewd than I give him credit for, or is truly deluded enough to believe lockstep standards are truly adventageuos to technical progress. |
| gus3 Aug 12, 2009 10:12 PM EDT |
Quoting:Never forget he is a business man first and benefactor second.Yes, as I echoed in my point #4 above (my second comment). I would expect a similar approach from Bob Young or Jim Whitehurst. OTOH, if I read something like that from Patrick Volkerding, I'd want confirmation that he actually wrote it. Quoting:That he tries to convince everyone else that his view is for the greater good of linux in general shows he is either more shrewd than I give him credit for, or is truly deluded enough to believe lockstep standards are truly advantageous to technical progress.Or both. Are they mutually exclusive? |
| krisum Aug 13, 2009 1:28 AM EDT |
Quoting: If the two meet at an approximate 2 year cycle between Debian stable (or the package freeze leading to it) and Ubuntu LTS, then short of a paint job, Ubuntu LTS becomes superfluous.Sure, it could and Ubuntu will have to bring in more on the plate to be relevant. So how is that a bad thing? As I see it Ubuntu gains, and overall Debian gains. Quoting: The whole of this is, Shuttleworth wishes a homogeneous across the board environment. If you wish to stick with the Microsoft analogy, they have proven that this creates a lesser product not a greater product. Linux greatest advantage is its diversity, where someone like Ubuntu can come along and challenge the norm. dragging others kicking and screaming along with them if they wish to meet the bar. The homogeneous environment can only work for the established players, as it never encourages others to break the mold and challenge pre concieved 'truths' ar rasies the technical bar to a new level.Oh well this is an over dramatization of the situation. One can point to multiple projects where it has been a proven success (e.g. eclipse). By your logic initiatives like from freedesktop or LSB etc. are bad things. Yes diversity of included components in a distro is good, but how do you see different upstream package versions for distro releases in approx the same time frame as a good thing? The proposal, as i see, is for cooperation to bring about a more uniform linux experience (with all its diversity) much in the same vein as freedesktop etc. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 13, 2009 2:32 AM EDT |
Quoting:If the two meet at an approximate 2 year cycle between Debian stable (or the package freeze leading to it) and Ubuntu LTS, then short of a paint job, Ubuntu LTS becomes superfluous. There are quite a few differences between Debian and Ubuntu. As I said previously, a lot of Ubuntu packages come directly from upstream and not from Debian, such as Gnome. These will be much newer. There are also many other differences. A different base system (upstart v.s. init) a different default shell (dash v.s bash, although IIRC Debian now switched to dash as well) , different X server and configuration. Different kernel configuration. Different default services and packages. Different tools, and not just a few GUIs thrown in. Think of Bulletproof X (which I find annoying as hell, but is really useful for non-geeks). Ubuntu is a lot more than Debian with a bit of lipstick. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!