2c about the development of ubuntu

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2006 at 11:20:31PM +0100, Loïc Martin wrote:
> Sorry, but as an example scim bugs were reported about 2 weeks (at 
> least, but don't take my word for it) before Breezy was due but these 
> bug reports were ignored due to lack of time and lack of manpower, 
> leaving Joe users like me with a load of headaches you can hardly imagine.

First, scim is a universe package, supported on a best-effort basis and
usually a very low priority when a release is approaching.  Second, while
two weeks may seem like a lot of time for a particular bug or two, bear in
mind that the development team is extremely busy during releases, just with
the normal preparatory work.  scim didn't change at all in Breezy for at
least two months before release as part of the normal freeze process.

> I've been following this discussion and it's the second time somebody 
> just relies on the old "why don't/didn't you fill a bug report? We can 
> do nothing else if you don't fill bug reports"(try to imagine your mum 
> sweet voice saying these words and you'll get my view of things)

I was talking about the problems mentioned in the previous message, not
scim.

> Well, bug reports *were* filled, and the problem *was* known by 
> developers who also *knew* the pain this would cause to other human 
> being. Just saying that no developer is used to foreign languages input 
> methods or that there's a lack of man power is going along quite well 
> with Udo's point.

This is true; there is a lack of experience with input methods among the
existing development team, and this is one of the reasons why the relevant
packages are not in main.  Another reason is that we receive conflicting
reports about which system is most appropriate for Ubuntu, and don't have
the wherewithal to decide due to the previous reason.

> Be assured I still haven't decided to replace Breezy by Sarge, which 
> goes long to say I do appreciate and respect the hard work done on 
> Ubuntu. But please, as long as we keep hearing "Why don't you fill a bug 
> report" or "Sorry, but we don't have time/manpower to solve it atm but 
> are still going to release it" like we still hear about Breezy (btw, 
> when is it going to be *admitted* that Breezy didn't ship with the 
> quality level we had in Hoary?), we're going to have a hard time 
> trusting things are going to be different with Dapper. Which was, as far 
> as I understood, Udo's concern.

The amount of quality control done on universe is extremely limited compared
to main.  While there are more developers focused on universe, their number
is still very small compared to the amount of software there.  We hope that
this will become less true in the future, as the development team grows, but
meanwhile we rely heavily on the efforts of the Debian maintainers of these
packages.

-- 
 - mdz