Oh Boy....

[Glanz]

azz Wrote: 
> But Ubuntu is not a fork. It is resync'd regularly. That is why Ubuntu
> makes Debian better, just as any open source project gets better with
> use.
> 
> It is, for the moment, just hurting those who make their business
> "pure" Debian.  Like Ian Murdock and Progeny.

'Check this' (http://tinyurl.com/5hqsj) from Benjamin Mako Hill::
excerpts from the 'plain text' (http://tinyurl.com/6dwok) version::''
(http://tinyurl.com/5hqsj)

A fork is a split in a software project. There have been some famous
forks (emacs, GCC) but it almost always involves both an
organizational and political split and a split in terms of code
leaving us with two projects and two source repositories.

Forking has benefits (there's a reason people do it):

* Freedom to pursue different idea of how things should be done.

Forking has some serious drawbacks though:

* Reproduction of work in a way that that Free Software was supposedly
going to be able to avoid.

* Security updates, installer issues, translations, etc


Case Study - Ubuntu
--------------------
Ubuntu is interesting because it's the closest thing we have to a full
fork.
Ubuntu is, under most traditional definitions, a fork. That said,
Ubuntu is not a traditional fork:

* We're contributing heaps of patches back to Debian (we did this even
before we had a name).

* We have hired many Debian developers (I'm a DD, and so are almost
everyone other Ubuntu developer so far). Even people who are not
hired.

* Ubuntu realizes it can't exist without Debian -- not Debian as the
place we started from but as the place that we continue to build of
of over time. We understand we need to work with and in Debian.
Summary

* The problem: Debian is great -- But can't be everything everyone
wants it to be at once.

* The Answer: Balance the global and local in creating infrastructure
to select, configure, replace, and install/use software in different
ways.

* The result:

- Paradoxically both diverging and building on Debian

- A single united goal of inter-project and inter-distribution
collaboration and Total World Domination.




* We aim to be a commercial *and* community project


-- 
Glanz