Strawman: merge main and universe

[Emmet Hikory]

On Dec 13, 2007 7:24 AM, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> I'd like to make a strawman proposal to be torn apart and burnt as
> necessary: merge main and universe.  I will try and explain my
> rationale, and my alternate proposal.
<...>
> The distinction between main and universe is instead done based on
> "support".  But what does this actually mean?
<...>
> I therefore propose an alternative.
>
> We move all packages from universe into main, and remove the universe
> component.  Likewise packages from multiverse are moved into restricted,
> and multiverse removed.
>
> Instead, we define who provides what kind of support through meta-data.
>
> We have generated lists of packages already, the seeds.  In fact, it's
> these seeds that (by a manual process) result in packages being divided
> between main and universe right now.
>
> So let's just use these to determine the types of support provided.

    Seeds make a lot of sense in this case, and also saves the issues
with MainInclusionReports: those with access to the seed are able to
adjust the content of the seed, following the guidelines for a given
seed.

<...>
> What about upload privileges?
>
> Let's do those the same way.
>
> Teams can approach the Technical Board for permission to own a
> particular seed; if granted, their team has permission to upload any
> package in the resulting list of packages from that seed.
>
> (The seed system already has priorities, so you couldn't add a package
>  in ubuntu-desktop and take it over; at least, not without negotiation.)
<...>
> ubuntu-dev, which would have permission to upload to anything not
> seeded, and would be members of most of the other technical teams as
> well.  This is where you would graduate to after being a member of a
> specific team.

    I see three issues with this model, as follows:

    A given seed may contain packages that are also in other seeds,
for example the UbuntuStudio Desktop seed contains many of the same
packages as the Ubuntu Desktop seed.  By allowing upload to anything
in a seed by those belonging to a seed-managing team, the core
packages (e.g. udev) will have a large number of uploaders, whereas
edge packages interesting to only one team (e.g. mythweather) will
have a very small number of uploaders.  To me this seems an imbalance:
I'd think edge packages should encourage a wider number of
contributors to look at them, and core packages should have a more
focused group.

    Any team which wished to have a set of seeds that resulted in an
installation CD would necessarily need access to installation tools,
core applications, etc.  As a result, the barrier for entry for
derivatives would be much higher.  In the current state, a derivative
need only get inclusion of the meta-packages in Ubuntu, get installer
patches accepted, and be granted CD builds.  With a seed-based
permission system, all members of the derivative development team
would need to be reviewed to ensure that they should be granted access
to all packages identified in the seed.  This makes it harder for a
small group on the periphery of Ubuntu development to establish an
alternate focus, and build a related development community.

    As the number of seeded sets grows, the set of packages managed by
~ubuntu-dev shrinks, perhaps encouraging the definition of seeds to
ensure continued ability to upload to packages of interest (e.g. MOTU
Science, or MOTU Games, etc.).  This further splinters the archive
permissions, possibly to a point where members of ~ubuntu-dev only
have access to essentially unmaintained software.  While this is
interesting from a package maintenance point of view, it represents
significant changes to the recruitment processes, and breaks the
current sponsoring model (unless all sponsors are chosen from the
ranks of ~ubuntu-core-dev).

-- 
Emmet HIKORY