On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 11:37 PM, Andreas Tille <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Kevin B. McCarty wrote: > >> Agreed, I find that in particular very irritating. How are we to >> communicate information about our packages to Ubuntu science folk? It's >> not at all clear where to email such info other than said mailing list, >> but I also have never been able to get my emails to the list. Could >> they at least whitelist the emails of maintainers of the relevant Debian >> packages?
I'm the admin of the ubuntu-motu-science list and I'm really sorry if I missed any of your emails. I'll look into whitelisting *[email protected] or something. I'm a mailman newb so I've just been moderating all non-subscriber emails by hand. That said, it seems the list has basically died out and I would suggest if you have questions to send them to the more general [email protected] list. > If you ask me the situation would be very simple: If Ubuntu derives from > Debian I would care for pushing all interesting software straight to Debian > and later derive with (hopefully) automatical tools. (I do not know Ubuntu > enough whether this is really done (semi)automatically.) There is at least > one positive example (namely Morten Kjeldgaard) who is actually following > this principle. The logical consequence in my opinion would be to have > this debian-science list as common discussion list for packaging scientific > software. I think that is largely the state of afairs. Morten has done excellent work and I've shifted essentially all my scientific packaging pursuits to Debian Science and Debchem. I even became a DM to help do as much work as I'm able to in Debian with the limited time I have. Part of the issue has been, I think, that Ubuntu is primarily IRC-driven and Debian is much more mailing list-driven so there sort of a communication mismatch there. I don't think it's an unsurmountable hurdle or anything, it just needs to be taken into account. > Well, I'm aware that statements like this might push me into the Ubuntu > unfriendly Debian maintainer corner. I can stand with this because I know > this is not the case. I just prefer to tackle problems at the source which > in this case is Debian. IMHO it would save a lot of time if we would join > forces here. So please save your time and do not tell me what a great job > Ubuntu Science people are doing. I do not doubt this - I just say it can > be done more efficiently together. I certainly wouldn't put you in that corner :-) Ubuntu needs to be able to take constructive criticism, just like everybody else. For my part, as the guy that started the MOTU Science team and then had to let it go as my dissertation got started, I think there is distinct room for improvement in Ubuntu's handling of science packages that I just haven't been able to address. For that I do feel bad. If Debian Science has some suggestions and/or tips that might help things go better I think Ubuntu would like to know. We use a Debian/Ubuntu version tracker [0] to give us information on how we're doing. We are tracking 696 total packages. Of those only 5 packages ( 0.7%) are not in Sid. Those 5 are old packages we've imported from elsewhere and frankly aren't worth Debian's time. We have 4 packages that have a newer version in Ubuntu than what's in Sid. We should certainly be getting those back to Debian where possible. Right around 90% of the packages are taken from Debian without any modification. Only 1.5 % are out of date in Jaunty (current devel release) with respect to Sid. Overall I think we're doing a pretty good job of sticking close to Debian where we can and not lagging. The biggest problem I think Ubuntu is having is getting overloaded with bugs. We have 365 science bugs open currently [1] and that's just too much for a handful of people to try to get all triaged and forwarded quickly. > PS: Please note that I do not answer any mail that tries to turn this into a > Debian Ububtu flamewar. My intent is the contrary of a flamewar and > thus I will not stupidly heat the flames. No flamewars needed :-) I think Debian and Ubuntu have a lot more in common than not. -Jordan [0] http://qa.ubuntuwire.com/multidistrotools/science.html [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/~motuscience/+packagebugs -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
