Thoughts on Ubuntu maintaining Jessie's kernel ~ discuss

[Randicus]

I'm saying there are enough capable developers in Debian with skills and willingness to maintain the kernel.

Given the size of the Debian project, there should be enough developers. That does not mean there are. (If not, that would be indicative of different problem.) In other words, you are assuming.

[hakerdefo]

The “New Maintainer process” is a strange way to discourage people to contribute to Debian. It is particularly bureaucratic and a huge waste of time both for the applicant and his manager. It should be completely thrown overboard.
One needs a more scalable approach for trust and credibility that also enhances the technical knowledge for coding and packaging of the applicant.
NM is currently set in stone as any outside critics is automatically rejected. Young and energetic people are crucial for Debian and the long-term viability of the project, this is the reason why I’d consider the “New Maintainer process” as Debian’s biggest problem.

This one comes from Maximilian Attems. Who is Maximilian Attems? He has been the top contributor in Debian kernel team since the departure of Herbert Xu.
Judging from this it is no wonder that Ubuntu will be maintaining Jessie's kernel!
Cheers!!!

[Randicus]

But that is not evidence that

there are enough capable developers in Debian with skills and willingness to maintain the kernel.

if they were allowed to. That is a (former?) developer's opinion of the general state of the distribution's development model. It would support (a little) an argument for a lack of maintainers overall, but is not evidence supporting a claim of a lack of kernel maintainers specifically. Although it does add a little weight to the argument, albeit more from extrapolation than proof.

[Linadian]

Holy wowzers Batman! And I thought I had a flammable tinfoil hat problem, lol...

Everybody seems to be forgetting Debian has an actual 'structure';

Debian copyright/software policies (see section 2.3 specifically), so license lockdown anything shouldn't make it in to any part of Debian. Anything new (software), being GPL, can and would be scrutinized, tweaked or rejected, etc.

Debian Constitution, it's not like there's a Darth Vader evil overlord, mind you, like any governing body there will be differences of opinion but when the smoke clears, nothing gets done without input or votes.

Now take a deep breath, go make a coffee and do some reading (see above links). If the sky does fall, my already ignited tinfoil hat will protect me.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's no 'deals with the devil' and corporations want to blow money developing, then release software in to the wild as GPL, good, let 'em! Branding can be removed, so can glitches and spyware. People that work on Debian chose to because it's not corp license lockdown and profit/monopoly driven, I'm pretty sure if Debian's carcass started to rot, Debian developers would flee in droves, I'm hoping that's not the case, that would really suck for millions of people, me included.

I'm kinda sorry I started this thread now. On the other hand, better to hash things out than keep 'em bottled up (see Postal Worker Syndrome, lol ).

Edited for grammar and spelling.

[golinux]

2) Discussions and polls in the various forums frequented by Debian users suggest that majority of the Debian users are not happy with systemd as default init.

Commercial users of Debian (or any other Linux system) far outnumber denizens of various Linux forums. It is commercial interests that are driving development. Sure they allow us to use their OS but they are not doing it for our benefit. We get what they decide to give us whether we like it or not.

[hakerdefo]

...Although it does add a little weight to the argument, albeit more from extrapolation than proof.

Yeah you are right! It doesn't provide the proof but proofs and evidences are hard to come-up with when we are discussing about actions and intentions. why did Debian leadership take the decision (action) to turn to Canonical to help maintain the kernel and why did Canonical agreed to provide the help (intention)?
Only the Debian leadership and Canonical have the answers. The rest of us only can extrapolate
Cheers!!!

[hakerdefo]

I'm kinda sorry I started this thread now. On the other hand, better to hash things out than keep 'em bottled up (see Postal Worker Syndrome, lol ).

You shouldn't be sorry! It's a good thing you did!
Postal Worker Syndrome is dangerous
Cheers!!!

[confuseling]

...Although it does add a little weight to the argument, albeit more from extrapolation than proof.

Yeah you are right! It doesn't provide the proof but proofs and evidences are hard to come-up with when we are discussing about actions and intentions. why did Debian leadership take the decision (action) to turn to Canonical to help maintain the kernel and why did Canonical agreed to provide the help (intention)?
Only the Debian leadership and Canonical have the answers. The rest of us only can extrapolate
Cheers!!!

Have you actually checked the mailing lists? I doubt this was done privately, and Debian doesn't need Ubuntu's permission to use their patches to GPL software.

I think the scenario is something like:

DD1: Well, the LTS kernel comes out a month after the freeze, so that's no good. And the one RHEL are using will be three months behind, missing drivers for hardware X and Y. I suppose we'll have to maintain our own.
DD2: Ubuntu support will overlap for a year, we could use theirs.
DD1: Good idea.

Not quite as exciting as all these insinuations about scheming in smoke filled rooms, but hey.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[hakerdefo]

Okay here is the story (real) behind Ubuntu maintaining Jessie kernel,
Ben Hutchings who is maintaining 3.2 kernel felt that he won't have time to maintain another longterm stable branch. He proposed to Greg Kroah-Hartman that his next longterm kernel branch be based on 3.16 but due to earlier freeze dates of consumer electronics companies Greg K-H selected 3.14 as the longterm stable branch. By this point Ubuntu has selected 3.16 kernel for their 14.10 release. Ubuntu 14.10 will be released in October 2014 and Ubuntu kernel team will be supporting the 3.16 kernel for about 15-18 months after 14.10 release and by that time the 3.2 kernel will reach EOL and from then on Ben Hutchins will be free to take over maintainership of 3.16 kernel.
Moral of this story? Something is wrong with Debian's development model. Why is there no one beside Ben Hutchings to take over the maintainership or to help him? Maximilian Attems summed it up when he said,

The “New Maintainer process” is a strange way to discourage people to contribute to Debian. It is particularly bureaucratic and a huge waste of time both for the applicant and his manager. It should be completely thrown overboard.
One needs a more scalable approach for trust and credibility that also enhances the technical knowledge for coding and packaging of the applicant.
NM is currently set in stone as any outside critics is automatically rejected. Young and energetic people are crucial for Debian and the long-term viability of the project, this is the reason why I’d consider the “New Maintainer process” as Debian’s biggest problem.

Cheers!!!

[buntunub]

Okay here is the story (real) behind Ubuntu maintaining Jessie kernel,
Ben Hutchings who is maintaining 3.2 kernel felt that he won't have time to maintain another longterm stable branch. He proposed to Greg Kroah-Hartman that his next longterm kernel branch be based on 3.16 but due to earlier freeze dates of consumer electronics companies Greg K-H selected 3.14 as the longterm stable branch. By this point Ubuntu has selected 3.16 kernel for their 14.10 release. Ubuntu 14.10 will be released in October 2014 and Ubuntu kernel team will be supporting the 3.16 kernel for about 15-18 months after 14.10 release and by that time the 3.2 kernel will reach EOL and from then on Ben Hutchins will be free to take over maintainership of 3.16 kernel.
Moral of this story? Something is wrong with Debian's development model. Why is there no one beside Ben Hutchings to take over the maintainership or to help him? Maximilian Attems summed it up when he said,

The “New Maintainer process” is a strange way to discourage people to contribute to Debian. It is particularly bureaucratic and a huge waste of time both for the applicant and his manager. It should be completely thrown overboard.
One needs a more scalable approach for trust and credibility that also enhances the technical knowledge for coding and packaging of the applicant.
NM is currently set in stone as any outside critics is automatically rejected. Young and energetic people are crucial for Debian and the long-term viability of the project, this is the reason why I’d consider the “New Maintainer process” as Debian’s biggest problem.

Cheers!!!

So you are suggesting that a new MP be discussed and hashed out? That's probably a wise idea if Debian is to survive and thrive long term, but a new thread should be started about that so that it can be hashed out properly.