
Interview with Debian Project Leader 29
An anonymous reader sent us a link to a Linux Power interview
with
Wichert Akkerman,
the Debian GNU/Linux project leader.
Talks about the future of Debian, his role, and more.
"Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!" -- Yosemite Sam
Bad mojo... (Score:1)
Debian gave up too. (Score:1)
Enlightenment (Score:1)
add the following to
deb http://www.debian.org/~bma/e-cvs/debs/
The package name is enlightenment-cvs
And our gnome packages do lag behind a little, 0.99.3 is in potato and 0.99.8 will be uploaded very soon. Packages do exist, they just aren't menioned on gnome.org like the rpms.
Bad mojo..... Get real (Score:1)
If you dont agree with debian then dont join, or better yet start your own distribution based on it.
Enlightenment .debs (Score:1)
http://www.debian.org/~bma/e-cvs/debs [debian.org]
Granted, I don't update them as often as I should. There was a point in time where I made new ones every major commit. That was when I had to hand-hack the source each time to get it to work with the FHS. Has _anyone_ noticed that the debian stuff is IN THE E SRC TREE?! I sent raster that patch for two reasons...a) to make my life easier in making the packages (I just have to do a cvs update, and a dch -i), and b) so people can BUILD THEIR OWN if they want more up to date ones. All I do when I build a package is 'fakeroot debian/rules binary', wait about 15 minutes, upload them to the aforementioned URL, and run dpkg-scanpackages on them so they are accessible via APT.
On a related note, I probably won't be doing the E CVS debs much longer. Jules Bean, another Debian developer, will probably be taking over shortly.
You also may wonder why the E CVS debs are not in the main distribution - easy - CVS is for _developers_, not the end user. I don't want to be flooded with bug reports for the latest CVS snap not working, because of an upstream source glitch that was fixed 2 minutes after I built the .debs. E15 is almost ready for release, and when it's released, it'll go into Debian. Simple as that.
bma
Uber-E maintainer for Debian
--
Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org/
Bad mojo... (Score:1)
These people who think everyone in the Debian project must agree with the DFSG are a subgroup of the project as a whole. As you yourself say, Debian has always had an "enormous number of dissenting opinions" -- well the opinion of this group is just such a dissenting opinion.
Joey Hess, debian developer and editor of Debian Weekly News.
Bad mojo... (Score:1)
Bad mojo... (Score:1)
This, in combination with some discussion I've seen on the Debian lists about requiring maintainers to agree with DFSG (and/or FSF?) as well as abide by them makes me very nervous. Free software in general, and Linux and Debian in particular, have gotten where they are because everybody is able to contribute. Allowing input only from people who agree with you is fine if you are never wrong; in the real world, it is a sure path to disaster. This is completely apart from the irony of a "free as in speech" software distribution requiring that you think a certain way in order to participate.
Realize that I don't think this is a problem at present; but things are definitely showing signs of heading that way.
I really like Debian; I don't want to see it go away. That a distribution put together and maintained entirely by volunteers is so successful is an amazing accomplishment. A quick look at Debian's history will show that this is because of the enormous number of dissenting opinions that have been dealt with, not because there weren't any.
Debian has certain ways it wants things done. This is fine. The maintainers should be made aware of this and expected to comply. However, doing the equivalent of requiring membership in a specific political party as a price of admission, IMNSHO, is a huge mistake.
Re: Whatever... (Score:1)
As to why, it would seem self evident. Free software improves and grows in an evolutionary process. By locking people into one mindset, you've just eliminated one of the major sources of change. I agree with you that Debian is the best distribution. I think it got there by expressly not doing this.
And again, I have a real problem with holding so tightly to the free software mantle then basically saying "yes, it's free as in speech, as long as you don't say it here."
Very good (Score:1)
Daniel
Mindshare (Score:1)
Also, there are a lot of bugs, but because there's so much more functionality than RH, and so many more people working on fixing the bugs, I feel like pitching in to help fix the bugs myself, rather than complaining. As soon as I become a little more familiar with the system, and learn how to make packages, I'm definitely going to sign up as a maintainer. I'm pretty good at writing documentation, so maybe I can start with that, as well as fixing the few installation bugs I noticed with slink.
One other nice thing is that the bleeding edge (unstable branch) is much easier to download than the RH equivalent (Rawhide), which AFAIK is only available for FTP from rawhide.redhat.com, which is completely overloaded all the time.
Finally, regarding the new GLIBC 2.1, I have much more confidence that Debian will survive that transition relatively unscathed (in particular, Debian uses a library naming scheme which will allow C++ programs linked with GLIBC 2.0 to coexist with those linked with GLIBC 2.1). My experience with Rawhide on this matter has not been very pleasant, and if you've installed EGCS 1.1.x on Redhat, you'll probably find all of your C++ binaries break when RedHat 6 comes out (in a nutshell, Redhat uses libstdc++.so.2.9.0 for both the GLIBC 2.0 and 2.1 version of libstdc++, which are incompatible with each other). Bad luck for people who compiled KDE or other C++ apps themselves using EGCS 1.1.1 (luckily, the KDE binary RPMs are built with an older version of EGCS which uses libstdc++.so.2.8.0, and so won't conflict with the new libstdc++ for GLIBC 2.1).
-Jake
Tried Debian today... (Score:1)
The distribution has the packages that match my personality. It was a nice surprise to have a great selection of scientific applications that are conviently installed. Other things caught my eye too, like the OJ screen saver.
For me, this is the ultimate distribution. I hope they enjoy the little donation from me in return.
Apples and Oranges... (Score:1)
Having the maintainers agree to contribute code using licenses that meet thier criteria for "free" software in has nothing to do with technical issues. Debian is not saying, "all programs must be single threaded" or "GUIs are for wimps, end of discussion." They are saying that they will only build a their distribution using licenses that meet specified requirements. That doesn't stiffle the discussions and arguments about technical issues, usability concerns or any other tangible aspect of the distribution. It just guarantees the consumers of the distribution that they can do anything they want with the distribution, except make the code secret.
Bad mojo... (Score:1)
I think that Wichert is not
talking about anything like swearing an oath on
some document. The interview is just to see
if the developer-to-be understands what Debian is,
and that it is 100% free software. The developer
can still upload non-free packages to the non-free
section (if their licenses allow this). Understandably, the developer must agree that everything in the main part of the distribution consists of free software and that binary only software and shareware and warez and whatnot cannot be included in a free distribution. The interview is meant to
try to avoid possible misunderstandings.
John Lapeyre
How to get potato CD images? (Score:1)
I agree (Score:1)
To summarize, this makes me question how "open" Debian and the rest of linux really are. Your speech is free as long as it is our speech, eh?
Debian gave up too. (Score:1)
"Caring about 100% free software" is a misleading approximation of Debian's philosophy.
~ Casper Boden-Cummins
Debian user since 0.93r6