proposed universe demotion: virt-manager (or, a request for active maintenance)

[Etienne Goyer]

Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> And I'm certainly not suggesting that we drop it from the archive, but
> rather move it from Main to Universe such that our stated support
> model actually matches the reality we have -- it's a GUI program that
> the Ubuntu Server Team doesn't maintain, and a Server-related program
> that doesn't fit the Desktop Team's current charter.

My concern regarding this demotion is not technical, it is about the
message we send.  Packages in main are those we reputedly care about,
enough so that we commit resource to maintain them over the lifetime of
the release.  Packages in universe are said to provided as-is, with no
guarantee as to whether security issues they may have are being
addressed in due time.  Back when hardy was released, and with the
introduction of KVM/libvirt notably, Ubuntu was positioning itself as a
virtualization-ready platform.  The demotion of virt-manager to universe
weaken that message.

Whether we like it or not, a GUI is something important to a lot people.
 As one of the tenet of Ubuntu is to democratize Linux, it would be
rather ambiguous if we where to decide that a libvirt GUI, which make
virtualization accessible to beginners, is not really important enough
for us to commit ongoing resources to.

Just to be clear, I am not being demeaning to the excellent work of the
 MOTU team.  They do an herculean job, given the size of universe.  I
appreciate their work, but I also understand that maintenance of a
long-released package may not be high on their priority list, and that
is perfectly fair.

This discussion will likely not end in a consensus.  Someone, somewhere
should just make a decision about it.


-- 
Etienne Goyer
Technical Account Manager - Canonical Ltd
Ubuntu Certified Instructor   -    LPIC-3

 ~= Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings =~