Good communication with upstream is good idea

[Osamu Aoki]

Hi,

I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.
(Practically copied with minor adjustment.) That is good but I felt a
bit strange since I needed to use my time to find it out.

Then, I realized I am no better than the Ubuntu MOTU developers on how to
deal with upstream as Debian Developer.

I think we should encourage packager to contact upstream with simple
"hello!" message and he (or myself) should be part of active upstream ML.

After all, we all are human.  Friendly "hello" always helps people.

I know this is not something we need to have as policy but as a part of
best practice document, it is good to mention.  For Debian, "Developers
Reference".  If I miss it in "Developers Reference", I am sorry.

I also appreciate Ubuntu MOTU developers who port Debian packages to do
the same. (Or Ubuntu employees to encourage such action to their
volunteer.)

For Debian, please continue discussion on Debian list.  If you think
this is valid and have good English skill, please propose patch to
Developers reference.

For Ubuntu, please continue discussion on Ubuntu list while you may CC
me since I do not subscribe to it.

Please, do not flame.  That is not my intension of this posting.  Just a
thought and suggestion to improve human relations in general.

Osamu


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[Florian Weimer]

* Osamu Aoki:

> I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.

Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
Debian, and not to Ubuntu.

What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
be my only choice.


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[Scott Kitterman-5]

On Sunday 20 July 2008 12:05, Florian Weimer wrote:

> * Osamu Aoki:
> > I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.
>
> Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
> package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
> potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
> Debian, and not to Ubuntu.
>
> What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
> want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
> be my only choice.

The preferred way of 'asking politely' is a removal bug.  The process is
described here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/PackageArchive?highlight=%28archive%29#head-6a4a4d2ad0cc004c6199f465539e3bbc2239291e

or if you don't want to unwrap the long URL:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ce4jk

Other than reading the pacakge description just now, I'm not familiar with the
package.  Would it make more sense for someone in Ubuntu to adapt the package
to work in the Ubuntu context than to remove it?  It looks like it would be
useful there too.

Scott K


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[Caroline Ford-2]

2008/7/20 Florian Weimer <fw@...>:

> * Osamu Aoki:
>
>> I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.
>
> Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
> package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
> potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
> Debian, and not to Ubuntu.
>
> What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
> want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
> be my only choice.

Packages are automatically synced from Debian as part of the
development process, if a package doesn't want to be in Ubuntu then as
far as I know there needs to be a manual override set up.

Relicensing your software to stop other people redistributing seems
like overkill to be honest, and no doubt would cause your package to
break the Debian Free Software Guidelines. You can't release under a
free license and keep 100% control over redistribution!

Caroline


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[Joey Hess]

Osamu Aoki wrote:
> I think we should encourage packager to contact upstream with simple
> "hello!" message and he (or myself) should be part of active upstream ML.

When I had upstreams, I always used to do this.

Often though, I'd wait until I had some patches to go with the "hello",
to make the message have a bit more value.

--
see shy jo, downstream from noone

[Neil Williams-4]

On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 18:05 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Osamu Aoki:
>
> > I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.

Have you found any that are not?

> Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
> package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
> potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
> Debian, and not to Ubuntu.
>
> What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
> want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
> be my only choice.

How would you relicence it in a manner that prevents use in Ubuntu but
retains DFSG compatibility to remain in Debian main?

Trying to ban Ubuntu usage would, AFAICT, fall foul of "discrimination
against fields of endeavour".

I ask because emdebian-tools isn't intended for Ubuntu either. See [0] -
emdebian-tools also depends on server resources provided only by Debian
(in this case, the package repositories containing compatible packages
which I can use to generate cross-dependencies).

"emdebian-tools is not intended for Ubuntu but I don't have a way of
encoding that in the package. emdebian-tools is tightly integrated into
Debian (and Debian unstable in particular) and is, naturally, a Debian
native package (it was written to support Embedded Debian after all, not
UbuntuMobile). It isn't intended to work on Ubuntu because Ubuntu does
not provide the foreign packages needed for linking when cross building,
those come exclusively from Debian. Same with apt-cross, it is
exclusively designed for Debian, Debian mirrors and Debian buildd
configurations. How is emdebian-tools meant to cross-build for ARM on
Ubuntu when Ubuntu does not provide ARM packages and makes changes to
the equivalent Debian packages? To me it seems highly unlikely that
cross versions of Debian packages would install over a Ubuntu base,
especially when those packages are the typical debootstrap selection
that have a variety of changes in Ubuntu. I don't run Ubuntu, I have no
inclination to test for Ubuntu and as no-one else has offered, I cannot
support Ubuntu."

How many packages could be in this situation? I don't expect it to be
many. Some form of filter on the Ubuntu side may be necessary.
Alternatively, is there a package that I can list in Conflicts: that is
only present in Debian derivatives? Yes, any mechanism could be abused
but MOTU-people could always file bugs in the BTS about such usage.

[0] http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/serendipity/index.php?/archives/122-Migrating-Emdebian-changes-into-Debian,-not-Ubuntu.html

--


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

[Florian Weimer]

* Neil Williams:

>> What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
>> want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
>> be my only choice.
>
> How would you relicence it in a manner that prevents use in Ubuntu but
> retains DFSG compatibility to remain in Debian main?

Relicensing would involve moving the package to non-free, that's
correct.  I could try some trademark stunt, but I don't want to spend
any money on a trademark registration.

I don't see why such cases (including yours) can't be resolved amicably.
It's not rocket science, after all.

> How many packages could be in this situation? I don't expect it to be
> many. Some form of filter on the Ubuntu side may be necessary.
> Alternatively, is there a package that I can list in Conflicts: that is
> only present in Debian derivatives? Yes, any mechanism could be abused
> but MOTU-people could always file bugs in the BTS about such usage.

MOTU bugs should end up in the Canonical bug tracker.


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[Bernhard R. Link-2]

* Osamu Aoki <osamu@...> [080720 14:57]:
> I think we should encourage packager to contact upstream with simple
> "hello!" message and he (or myself) should be part of active upstream ML.
>
> After all, we all are human.  Friendly "hello" always helps people.
>
> I know this is not something we need to have as policy but as a part of
> best practice document, it is good to mention.  For Debian, "Developers
> Reference".  If I miss it in "Developers Reference", I am sorry.

Developers' Reference has only
http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/developer-duties.html#upstream-coordination
but I guess saying hello is already implied in the title "Coordination with
upstream developers".

The New Maintainers' Guide has in the list of things to do when
packaging the first program:

"you should contact program's author(s) to check if they agree with
packaging it. It is important to be able to consult with author(s) about
the program in case of any program specific problems, so don't try to
package unmaintained pieces of software."

I think I saw it also in some instructions on how to ITP something but
I no longer find it.

But saying helo is not always easy. First of all one has to be able to
contact upstream (I once adopted a package where all email addresses of
upstream in the software and on the website there was none. Only behind
a link to another project was the mailinglist also for this package).

And then formulating such a mail is always a bit complicated. Not
everyone knows that package maintainers in Debian are really about
source modifications and saying helo can easily result in being offered
the upstream maintainer hat.

Hochachtungsvoll,
        Bernhard R. Link
--
"Never contain programs so few bugs, as when no debugging tools are available!"
        Niklaus Wirth


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[Franklin PIAT]

On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 18:42 +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Osamu Aoki <osamu@...> [080720 14:57]:
> > I think we should encourage packager to contact upstream with simple
> > "hello!" message and he (or myself) should be part of active upstream ML.
> >
> > After all, we all are human.  Friendly "hello" always helps people.
> >
> > I know this is not something we need to have as policy but as a part of
> > best practice document, it is good to mention.  For Debian, "Developers
> > Reference".  If I miss it in "Developers Reference", I am sorry.
[..]
> And then formulating such a mail is always a bit complicated. Not
> everyone knows that package maintainers in Debian are really about
> source modifications and saying helo can easily result in being offered
> the upstream maintainer hat.

The mail to upstream could include a snipet like :

"If you are curious about what `Packaging for Debian' involves, you can
read : http://wiki.debian.org/GettingPackaged "


A lot of good work was done on that page, it could probably still be
improved and be migrated to www.d.o/doc/.

Franklin


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[Neil Williams-4]

On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 12:16 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:

> On Sunday 20 July 2008 12:05, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > * Osamu Aoki:
> > > I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.
> >
> > Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
> > package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
> > potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
> > Debian, and not to Ubuntu.
> >
> > What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
> > want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
> > be my only choice.
>
> The preferred way of 'asking politely' is a removal bug.  The process is
> described here:

Which cannot be done without
yet-another-website-login-combo-to-use-once-and-lose-forevermore -
useless Ubuntu bug tracker. :-(

I do feed info upstream (via yet more website logins), I really can't
add yet another one.

That was the main point of my original blog entry linked from the
previous post. Having to ask the lazy web to sort out bugs in Ubuntu is
just daft, IMHO, but that's what LP requires. As I say, daft.

--


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

[Reinhard Tartler-4]

Florian Weimer <fw@...> writes:

> What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  


I'd suggest filing a bug, and perhaps advertise it on the relevant
developer mailing lists.

> I don't want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it
> seems to be my only choice.

Relicensing would most probably make the package end up in multiverse
instead of univserse. In any case it would end up much confusion and
very litte benefit for all involved parties.

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4


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[Scott Kitterman-5]

On Sunday 20 July 2008 13:33, Neil Williams wrote:

> On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 12:16 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Sunday 20 July 2008 12:05, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > > * Osamu Aoki:
> > > > I found some of my packages are offered as a part of Ubuntu archive.
> > >
> > > Same here.  In my case (debsecan), it's a bit irresponsible because the
> > > package doesn't really work on Ubuntu--but it's not readily apparent to
> > > potential users.  Furthermore, it uses server resources provided to
> > > Debian, and not to Ubuntu.
> > >
> > > What's the correct way to get it out of Unbuntu (universe)?  I don't
> > > want to relicense it, but if asking politely does not work, it seems to
> > > be my only choice.
> >
> > The preferred way of 'asking politely' is a removal bug.  The process is
> > described here:
>
> Which cannot be done without
> yet-another-website-login-combo-to-use-once-and-lose-forevermore -
> useless Ubuntu bug tracker. :-(
>
> I do feed info upstream (via yet more website logins), I really can't
> add yet another one.
>
> That was the main point of my original blog entry linked from the
> previous post. Having to ask the lazy web to sort out bugs in Ubuntu is
> just daft, IMHO, but that's what LP requires. As I say, daft.

Agreed.  There's a lot of stuff about Launchpad that is daft.  

If would put together the information requested in the removal bug, I'll file
it.  That would avoid the need to make an account.  Feel free to follow-up
offlist.

Scott K


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[Holger Levsen-2]

Hi,

On Sunday 20 July 2008 18:42, Florian Weimer wrote:
> Relicensing would involve moving the package to non-free, that's
> correct.

Ui, I dint expect you really would want that. Why not detect if the system is
really Debian and if not output "system type unsupported"?


regards,
        Holger

[Neil Williams-4]

On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 19:57 +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sunday 20 July 2008 18:42, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > Relicensing would involve moving the package to non-free, that's
> > correct.
>
> Ui, I dint expect you really would want that. Why not detect if the system is
> really Debian and if not output "system type unsupported"?

I tried that - it generates a bug report within Ubuntu that I can't
close from within Debian but which shows up on the PTS page.
:-(

Plus it adds unnecessary code to the package without removing it from
the apt-cache search results in Ubuntu which only confuses people.

--


Neil Williams
=============
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http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

[Steve Langasek]

Hi Neil,

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 05:32:31PM +0100, Neil Williams wrote:
> I ask because emdebian-tools isn't intended for Ubuntu either. See [0] -
> emdebian-tools also depends on server resources provided only by Debian
> (in this case, the package repositories containing compatible packages
> which I can use to generate cross-dependencies).

That doesn't seem particularly Debian-specific, though?  It's not out of the
question that Ubuntu could have an armel port later, and that's the only
thing I can think of that /should/ cause emdebian-tools to be incompatible
with Ubuntu.

> "emdebian-tools is not intended for Ubuntu but I don't have a way of
> encoding that in the package. emdebian-tools is tightly integrated into
> Debian (and Debian unstable in particular) and is, naturally, a Debian
> native package (it was written to support Embedded Debian after all, not
> UbuntuMobile). It isn't intended to work on Ubuntu because Ubuntu does
> not provide the foreign packages needed for linking when cross building,
> those come exclusively from Debian.

So if an armel port of Ubuntu becomes available, is there anything else that
stops emdebian-tools from working with it?

> Same with apt-cross, it is exclusively designed for Debian, Debian mirrors
> and Debian buildd configurations.

How does apt-cross have anything to do with the Debian buildds, at all?
Surely you're not using this as a build-dependency to force Debian
cross-builds on the Debian buildds, are you?

Nor do I see how apt-cross would be affected by differences between a Debian
vs. an Ubuntu mirror.  (Ubuntu main is smaller than Debian main, but is
still self-contained, to be sure.)

> How is emdebian-tools meant to cross-build for ARM on Ubuntu when Ubuntu
> does not provide ARM packages and makes changes to the equivalent Debian
> packages?

Hrm, what changes are at issue here?  The Debian maintainers also make
changes to Debian packages, all the time.  In what way do the Ubuntu changes
differ that makes emdebian-tools incompatible with Ubuntu?

> To me it seems highly unlikely that
> cross versions of Debian packages would install over a Ubuntu base,
> especially when those packages are the typical debootstrap selection
> that have a variety of changes in Ubuntu. I don't run Ubuntu, I have no
> inclination to test for Ubuntu and as no-one else has offered, I cannot
> support Ubuntu."

While the current absence of any official Ubuntu armel port seems like a
pretty good reason to omit emdebian-tools from Ubuntu for the moment, the
fact that the Debian package maintainer or upstream author doesn't support
Ubuntu would not generally be a reason for Ubuntu not to include the
package.  Debian also has any number of upstreams who don't "support"
Debian, after all.

> How many packages could be in this situation? I don't expect it to be
> many. Some form of filter on the Ubuntu side may be necessary.

Yes, there is a blacklist in Ubuntu to prevent certain packages from being
synced from Debian.  Scott Kitterman has already started the process now of
getting emdebian-tools added to that list.

BTW, in your cited blog post, I noticed that you wrote:

> I really don't like Launchpad (I have quite enough web-logins thank you very
> much) or the PTS link that shows Ubuntu bugs that I cannot close from
> Debian.

You can close Launchpad bugs in Ubuntu packages from Debian.  The "LP: ######"
syntax lets bugs get autoclosed when your package is synced to Debian, or
when it's merged by an Ubuntu developer.

Cheers,
--
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@...                                     vorlon@...


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[Ben Finney-5]

Neil Williams <codehelp@...> writes:

> On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 19:57 +0200, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > Why not detect if the system is really Debian and if not output
> > "system type unsupported"?
>
> I tried that - it generates a bug report within Ubuntu that I can't
> close from within Debian but which shows up on the PTS page.
> :-(

Yes, this is a good argument against the change to the PTS introduced
by bug#483179.

The Debian BTS should *only* report problems that can be solved from
within Debian, otherwise it's useless noise that leads to that section
being ignored even when it might have something important to say.

However, the above bug in the Debian BTS has been archived. Must we
open another bug to ask for the change to be reverted?

--
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_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney


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[Neil Williams-4]

On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 13:43 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:

> Hi Neil,
>
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 05:32:31PM +0100, Neil Williams wrote:
> > I ask because emdebian-tools isn't intended for Ubuntu either. See [0] -
> > emdebian-tools also depends on server resources provided only by Debian
> > (in this case, the package repositories containing compatible packages
> > which I can use to generate cross-dependencies).
>
> That doesn't seem particularly Debian-specific, though?  It's not out of the
> question that Ubuntu could have an armel port later, and that's the only
> thing I can think of that /should/ cause emdebian-tools to be incompatible
> with Ubuntu.

emdebian-tools supports all the architectures currently supported by
Debian and a few that are pending (like uclibc ones - once the
well-known problems in uClibc are sorted out and uclibc returns to
Debian after Lenny). To support emdebian-tools properly, Ubuntu would
have to support all the Debian architectures with appropriate buildds
and repositories. This is more than a little pointless.

The other problem is that emdebian-tools is working towards getting
cross-building support into Debian packages but currently needs patches
to cross-build all current packages (even those that have closed the
relevant cross-building support bugs) due to issues in CDBS and
debhelper etc. Those patches are constantly updated against the versions
of the packages in Debian Sid - e.g. I've just updated the patches for
pam, pcre3 and a few others that allow me to upload a usable cross-built
package in advance of a solution compatible with the Debian package
itself. With the newly created cross-building autobuilder for Emdebian,
[0] I will now have more time to file such bugs to get the next round of
cross-building support into packages. I was concentrating on getting the
basic support into at least some packages for Lenny and that is now
done. All the time, the tools themselves are developing and becoming
more powerful. As support improves, patches change. It's a lot of work
and I am not about to make those patches compatible with the versions in
Ubuntu (or any other derivative) - the only solution for non-Debian
usage is to wait until the changes are made in the appropriate Debian
packages that remove the need for the patches. That is a slow process
and in the meantime, Emdebian needs packages to test and those need the
patches.

Even when the patches are folded into Debian, the lack of suitable
architecture repositories will prevent emdebian-tools being useful on
Ubuntu, especially when compared with running the tools inside a Debian
chroot on Ubuntu.

> > "emdebian-tools is not intended for Ubuntu but I don't have a way of
> > encoding that in the package. emdebian-tools is tightly integrated into
> > Debian (and Debian unstable in particular) and is, naturally, a Debian
> > native package (it was written to support Embedded Debian after all, not
> > UbuntuMobile). It isn't intended to work on Ubuntu because Ubuntu does
> > not provide the foreign packages needed for linking when cross building,
> > those come exclusively from Debian.
>
> So if an armel port of Ubuntu becomes available, is there anything else that
> stops emdebian-tools from working with it?

mips, mipsel, ARM, uclibc-arm, uclibc-mips . . . .

Currently, emdebian-tools only has prebuilt binary packages for ARM (not
armel) but adding more is supported (although not particularly trivial
at this time).

For Ubuntu to support emdebian-tools, Ubuntu would have to become Debian
which would be pointless (and futile).

Those who want to do things with Emdebian on Ubuntu are simply advised
to create a Debian chroot - Lenny or better - and run things from there.

> > Same with apt-cross, it is exclusively designed for Debian, Debian mirrors
> > and Debian buildd configurations.
>
> How does apt-cross have anything to do with the Debian buildds, at all?
> Surely you're not using this as a build-dependency to force Debian
> cross-builds on the Debian buildds, are you?

The Emdebian autobuilder uses apt-cross, yes. There is no other way of
downloading ARM packages on amd64 and converting them to -arm-cross
packages for use in /usr/arm-linux-gnu/lib/ etc and reconciling all the
dependencies to be compatible with dpkg. emdebian-tools uses a
debootstrap wrapper to create a disposable chroot cross-building
environment with emdebian-tools installed and configured inside
(including a cross-buildi