"Bernhard R. Link" <brl...@debian.org> writes: > * Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> [111231 18:41]:
>> This isn't about the package. It's about the *software*, the part that >> we generally use from upstream as much as possible because asking >> people to be both upstream and the Debian package maintainer is >> generally too much work for one person or even a small packaging team. > If the maintainer refuses patches and only wants to fix brokeness if > someone does a full blown upstream fork then this is a maintainer issue. I think this discussion is getting hopelessly muddled by excessive use of sweeping statements like this. I can't tell from this response whether you just disagree with Marco that the changes required will be substantial and ongoing, or whether you think that Marco should be maintaining substantial and ongoing patches himself as part of some obligation to the project for having the title of udev maintainer, or something else. And that lack of clarity just makes for more pointless arguments. Semantically, *any* patch is a fork of a sort. Practically, small patches involve small amounts of ongoing work and therefore become a different sort of thing than a real fork. A real fork is required if the patches become substantial, impact core functionality, and pose significant merge issues. But there's no clear distinction. My understanding of Marco's position is that the changes to udev that people are objecting to (undermining the ability to mount only / and not /usr at early boot, and using configuration overlays or replacements in /etc with package files in /lib) are the sort of changes that cannot be reversed with a simple patch that Marco can easily maintain on an ongoing basis. That even if the current complexity is low, he believes it will grow. This is an ENTIRELY REASONABLE thing for a maintainer to say, and an entirely reasonable thing for a maintainer to not want to get involved in. I daresay it's likely you've done the same yourself for some wontfix divergence from upstream with one of your packages. I know I certainly have with mine. Packaging resources are limited, and maintaining permanent divergence from upstream is a lot of hard work. Please, don't try to paint this position as some sort of dereliction of duty in order to score rhetorical points. It doesn't get us anywhere. If you think Marco is wrong in his estimation of the level of effort required, *that* is useful information, particularly if it's backed up with a concrete analysis (which would involve research into what the changes entail and what the udev upstream has said). That's a good discussion to have. But just hammering on Marco because you don't like the upstream direction of the package (at least as he understands it) and you want him to single-handedly stop it is pointless and needlessly antagonistic. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/871urjb8bw....@windlord.stanford.edu