[conspire] conspire Digest, Vol 51, Issue 25

[Nick Moffitt]

Daniel Gimpelevich:
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:17:23 +0100, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> > Also, I should point out the obvious counterexample in that upstart
> > was in Ubuntu before it was ever in Debian.
> 
> Upstart is a perfect example of what I mean. Ubuntu shipped it for
> quite some time while Debian had it only in the Experimental branch.
> Ubuntu went to the moon and back while Debian was still preparing for
> a one-way trip.

Do you understand that Upstart was *written* by Ubuntu core developer
Scott James Remnant?  One could say that Debian experimental took these
packages from Ubuntu, rather than the other way around!  

Most (if not all) of the Ubuntu core developers are also Debian
developers, and they push their work back up to Debian where it makes
sense.  In this instance it looks like Martin Krafft took an interest in
Ubuntu's Ubpstart system and uploaded it to Debian Experimental, perhaps
in the hopes that Debian could find time to include it in their init
system.  But Ubuntu has focused a lot of time and effort on working
upstart into its architecture, and Debian has focused on other things
instead.

For a long time people within Debian got mad because they expected that
all the developers working on Ubuntu would stop contributing to Debian.
There was a big kerfuffle over a hastily-done megadiff in the early
days, and it was important for Ubuntu to show that it wasn't neglecting
its upstream ancestor.

If anything, an argument could be made that Ubuntu development is being
thrown over the wall into Debian Experimental, and no effort is being
made to push that work into Debian Unstable.  But to claim that Ubuntu
is just clumsily repackaged software from Experimental is wrong in the
extreme.

-- 
"There should be a homonym exam before people are         Nick Moffitt
issued keyboards."     -- George Moffitt                 nick at zork.net