Debian Unstable vs. Ubuntu

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 10:04:36PM +0200, Rami Kayyali wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:56:32 -0800, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 12:14:12PM +0200, Rami Kayyali wrote:
> > > My gripes with Ubuntu:
> > > - To some degree, there's certain incompatibility with Debian
> > > packages, I can't use Debian's repositories in Ubuntu and sleep sound.
> > 
> > Our intention is that it should be unnecessary, as we provide all of the
> > software from Debian directly.
> 
> Then why the double work? Why not be very compatible with Debian, but
> still provide cutting-edge packages?

The realities of packaging such a large volume of software are unfortunately
more complex than this; Ubuntu _is_ very compatible with Debian (by nature),
but neither Debian nor Ubuntu can make guarantees about this, because the
two projects make independent decisions.

Regardless of compatibility, it is problematic to mix packages from
different distributions on the same system, because neither distribution
will want to accept bug reports from a mixed system: they are unlikely to be
able to reproduce them, and their burden is already great enough to support
one distribution.  There are also technical obstacles with the way that apt
handles these situations.

However, the amount of duplicate work is actually fairly minimal (Debian and
Ubuntu share a great majority of their code); what gave you the impression
that it was otherwise?

> Well, I don't think you could discuss merging Debian and Fedora, since
> both are of very different natures. However, you could discuss merging
> Fedora with Mandrake for instance. If Ubuntu could be somehow merged with
> Debian, I think we wouldn't have the need to do the work others have done
> before. It's a combination of efforts.

In the open source world, different people want different things, and that
is why there are a huge number of distributions to choose from.  The way
forward is not to try to merge distributions, but rather to allow for
efficient collaboration between distributions, which is one of the primary
goals we are pursuing with Ubuntu and Launchpad.

Again, your sentiment seems to indicate that you believe there to be a great
duplication of effort between Ubuntu and Debian, but there is quite a bit
less than one might expect.  Patches from Ubuntu are regularly sent to
Debian maintainers for merging, and Debian work is regularly merged into
Ubuntu.  Our goal is to minimize the differences between Ubuntu and Debian,
to the point where they closely approximate the different goals of the two
projects.

Ubuntu and Debian are already operating cooperatively, and we hope to
streamline that collaboration as we evolve.

> Keep in my mind, that I haven't heard any reasoning on why Ubuntu
> shouldn't be merged with Debian, or why not just track Debian and
> provide extra packages from a certain repository that would generate a
> Debian => Ubuntu desktop while still maintaining close ties to
> Debian's own repositories.

Ubuntu and Debian cannot merge, because Debian and Ubuntu want different
(and very often incompatible) things.

There are solid technical reasons why a shared repository model wouldn't
work.  Ubuntu does much more than just add new packages to Debian; our real
focus is on integrating existing packages in very specific ways, by making
modifications to them.  This is fundamentally incompatible with mixing
Debian ond Ubuntu repositories, because the packages from each distribution
would supersede each other unpredictably.  Our current approach is carefully
considered and has performed well so far.

> Many say that Ubuntu "forces" its own choices. If you ask me, by all means
> do that. The desktop doesn't need tons of questions, and nitty-gritty
> details about every other little aspect of the system.  Users need
> simplicity, they just want a system that works (trust me, this is the only
> thing that got me to try Ubuntu and ditch Gentoo for a while, the fact
> that I got the system up and running in less than 10 mins).

That's the idea exactly.  In fact, I don't see the Ubuntu approach as
"forcing" at all; given a simple, working system, the user is free to make
new choices and depart from the standard configuration as far as they like.

If we did not make these default choices, that would be "forcing" users to
make a choice before they can have a usable system.

> > We have an excellent documentation team who discuss and prioritize these
> > issues.  They can be found on the ubuntu-doc mailing list.
> 
> Well yes, the team is probably excellent, but what about the
> documentation? All Ubuntu has right now is a bunch of HOWTOs, some
> "unofficial" Ubuntu guide, and fairly small-to-medium user forums. I know
> it's great to have a question answered immedietly, but I'd still love to
> find it myself in a manual or a book, you know, just in case :)

My comment was a thinly veiled invitation for you to correspond with the
documentation team about your ideas for new documentation. ;-)

> To be fair though, I'm quite astonished with how this thread is going.  I
> love the intelligent remarks, the non-flamable replies, and that everyone
> knows that if we're discussing this, then it's only for the better of
> Ubuntu; it's called constructive criticism. You guys just don't know how
> rare this is. I can't stop liking Ubuntu. Like many people said, it's not
> just the quality, it's the whole end-to-end experience (downloading =>
> installing => finding help => getting things to work => etc....)

I am extremely pleased with the way that the community has grown, while
maintaining the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect on which it was
based.

-- 
 - mdz