So what is really in my universe?

[Daniel Robitaille]

A few weeks ago  Jeff Waugh sent to the list a little script to check
which packages someone installed from Ubuntu's universe.  Since I'm a
bit concerned by the lack of support (i.e, security and bug fixes) of
the packages I installed from universe, I decided to check  how the
version of my universe packages compared to what is found in Debian
Testing and Unstable. (little shell script to do this available upon
request)

So what is currently in my universe is:
Package                        Ubuntu               Testing           
  Unstable
afio                           2.5-2                2.5-2                2.5-2
buffer                         1.19-4               1.19-5               1.19-5
cupsys-driver-gimpprint        4.2.6-5ubuntu2       4.2.7-3              4.2.7-4
cupsys-driver-gimpprint-data   4.2.6-5ubuntu2       4.2.7-3              4.2.7-4
ddclient                       3.6.2-2.2            3.6.2-3              3.6.2-3
gstreamer0.8-mad               0.8.5-1ubuntu3       0.8.4-1              0.8.5-1
jhead                          2.1-4                2.2-1                2.2-1
libjpeg-progs                  6b-9                 6b-9                 6b-9
lzop                           1.01-1               1.01-3               1.01-3
mindi                          0.86.1-1             1.03.1-3          
  1.03.1-3
mindi-busybox                  0.99.040511-1        0.99.040720-3     
  0.99.040720-3
mondo                          1.66-2               2.03.1-1          
  2.03.1-2
ms-sys                         1.1.3-1              1.1.3-1              1.1.3-1
sketch                         0.6.15-1             0.6.15-1          
  0.6.15-1
tint                           0.03a                0.03a                0.03a

Then if someone go check the Debian  changelogs
(http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/m/) you can then try
to figure which differences are important, and which one are not, and
judge for yourself your risk level.

In my case it seems most packages are the same between Debian and
Ubuntu, and for most of the differences the changelogs shows that the
changes are quite minimal and can probably be ignored.  But the
mondo/mindi packages are a whole different story.  There seems to have
been quite a version jump between what is now in Debian and what was
frozen for Ubuntu in June. And a look at the changelogs show a few bug
fixes that seem to be related to the interaction between mondo and the
kernel 2.6.  Personally that raises all sort of red flags in my mind;
I haven't used Mondo yet of this Ubuntu's install (I'm still testing
Ubuntu before it goes into production shortly after the official
release), so backups (or lack of) hasn't been an issue yet.

All this simply tell me that my Ubuntu Universe's Mondo/Mindi packages
should be removed shortly from my machine, and to play safe I'll
probably install manually the upstream source (or maybe use a
different backup solution).

And it is a reminder that what the good folks from Ubuntu keep telling
us: packages from Universe are really a "buyers beware" solution.