Ubuntu is under attack (longish)

[Derek Broughton]

Anders Karlsson wrote:

> On 12/19/05, Old Rocker <old.rocker at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> Ubuntu tries to maintain a closeness to Ubuntu, but from what I have
> read, gives no guarantee about being 100% compatible. 

If Ubuntu can't maintain 100% compatibility with Ubuntu, we're in
trouble :-)  (yeah, I know you meant "Debian" in the second case).

>> It is Ubuntu's fault when fully compatible Debian packages break due to
>> their not being compatible with the main core, because that is NOT why
>> Debian was set up.  You should be able to edit the sources.list in
>> apt-get and set pinning to ensure you get packages from the
>> repositories you want; this is why it was included in apt-get.
... 
> From what I remember, not even on Debian, and only Debian, was it
> entirely safe mixing packages from different releases, let alone
> distributions. (I remember severe problems with XFree86...)

Definitely.  Apt pinning is available to allow _advanced_ (_very_ advanced)
users to use packages not otherwise available _at their own risk_.  I've
used it for years.  I'm never comfortable with it, and I always assume that
it's the pinning that's at the root of any apt problem I have (and the
assumption almost always turns out to be correct).
> 
>> Now, if your argument is that Ubuntu and Kubuntu are fine and its just
>> as you want, I can understand that.  However, I am concerned that the
>> Debian system is being forked while this is happening.  As part of the
>> open source community we should be working towards making less
>> proliferation of the same packages, and making those packages better;
>> wouldn't it be better if Ubuntu worked with the same packages as the
>> Debian system?  Then we could all use the same packages....
> 
> Personally, I could not care less if some people want a flamewar about
> a fork. Ubuntu != Debian.

Ubuntu may not be strictly a fork, because every change they make is
presented upstream to Debian, and Debian uses many (most?) of them.  Then
Ubuntu merges Debian and discards any of their own patches that have been
adopted upstream.  However, there are certainly some packages that will
probably never again be identical to Debian and the number of such will
likely increase - I guess it's a fork when you finally decide to keep your
source trees entirely separate.  Anyway, Ubuntu _does_ try to make Debian
packages better - however, sometimes Debian maintainers and Ubuntu
maintainers aren't going to agree on the definition of "better".
> 
>> In a recent article in the UK magazine "Linux Format" this was said:
>>
>> "There is tension between the Debian Project and its offspring ..."

Yeah, I read that.  In the first place, it seemed to be extremely stale news
(remember that magazine lead times can be as much as six months), but also
as a regular of both Debian & Ubuntu lists I really haven't seen much sign
of that.
-- 
derek