What is an Upstream?

[Danilo Šegan]

Hi Amachu,

Today at 4:39, amachu techie wrote:

> First and foremost, let me start with what an Upstream is?

"Upstream" is the software/translations "originator", i.e. from where
the original software/translations come from.

We need this concept to differentiate between "upstream" and
"downstream" (which is Ubuntu itself).  I.e. upstream gnome-panel
doesn't have System -> About Ubuntu menu item, while the downstream
does.  And there are more differences like this.

I.e. "upstream developers" for the default desktop environment in
Ubuntu, Gnome, are those at http://gnome.org/.  Upstream releases of
"Gnome" are on http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/.

And "upstream translations" are those which come along with upstream
releases of software.  So, for many languages, there are also upstream
Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Firefox translation teams.  They are those who
do the work directly at the source.  For some projects (marked "uses
Rosetta officially" in Launchpad), upstream == Rosetta.

And there are benefits to being both downstream and upstream
translator: as downstream, you get your work integrated directly and
faster, and as upstream, you get your work distributed more widely
(i.e. those translations will end up in many distributions).

Wherever possible, we hope to have good coordination and cooperation
with upstream teams.

Cheers,
Danilo