[sf-lug] Ubuntu vs. Mandriva

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (a_kleider at yahoo.com):

> Where the mark is missed has my curiosity aroused but clarification of
> the second part would also be of interest. 

You know, it's not like the history of Ubuntu is difficult to look up,
Alex.  	I'm short on time, but here's a really brief summary:

Ubuntu (and related projects) initially planned to fork off a separate
instance of the Debian "unstable" package collection about every six
months, maintaining it on their own (with emphasis on particular package
subsets) for a preplanned support interval and maintaining binary
compatibility.  Both ideas failed to work out exactly as planned, and
now Ubuntu has more-or-less a separate but intertwined package
collection with the Debian package pool -- in part because, more often
than not, the maintainer of a particular package for Ubuntu and for
Debian have ended up being the same person.

So, at present, Ubuntu sources and Debian sources are not always the
same but often are -- nor is it necessarily the case that Ubuntu uses
Debian as a point of departure in creating its own packages, but often
does.  (The reverse is also often true.)  

(FYI:  There is no longer binary compatibility between the two projects
as any sort of general rule.  At least, no policy requires it, and it's 
serendipity when it happens.)