[Pkg-samba-maint] Please put back Debian/Ubuntu branding in Samba package

[Michael Tokarev]

08.04.2024 01:59, Andrew Bartlett:
> Thanks Michael for everything you do to maintain the Samba packages in Debian.
> 
> The SAMBA_VERSION_VENDOR_SUFFIX=Debian in the Samba package is a specific request from the upstream Samba team.
> 
> It is added because Debian carries patches that don't appear upstream (it has got better, but there are still some) and the branding appears in our 
> debug logs (specifically in every PANIC) so we can ensure we are debugging the right version and expecting the right behaviours when a user has 
> questions on the mailing list.

Aha.  Interesting.

I tried to find out why this has been done and if it can be removed now, -
if it's okay with ubuntu folks.  I didn't even think to ask the upstream,
I was 100% sure it was due to downstream.

The reason I thought it not only unneeded but also even wrong, is because
there's nothing really debian (or ubuntu) in the debian samba package, it
seemed a bit unfair to add our (debian) label to the goods not made by
debian, so to say.  It is the samba team who wrote the code, and in my
view, by adding "debian" label, debian claims it added something valuable
to samba, which is untrue.  It's not about "we're not to blame", my
thoughts was entirely due to "who to thank", so to say.

This change has been made at a somewhat unfortunate moment, - I thought
about this, made a commit in my local tree, and asked around if this
thing is okay.  And next, a t64-related bug report has come which needed
fixing, so I fixed that one on top of "de-branding" and uploaded,
without waiting for the other answers to come.

There's no harm done, as it's not a big thing and it's not a long time
it existed.  It is more, it looks like without this upload I wouldn't
have know the answer anyway :)

Having your reasons in mind, I still think this is wrong to have the
branding in debian.  The only still-relevant change which makes
debian/ubuntu packages different from upstream is enabling of user
shares by default (a change I think is very wrong exactly due to
it being different from upstream), and I want to address this (and
it still isn't very important in context of bug reports since if the
question will be about user shares it will be obvious they're enabled).
All the rest are just trivial bugfixes (or adjustments for inadequate
log levels - but which actually might be confusing when debugging), -
I especially refuse to change the code in a way which might change
behavior compared to the upstream samba.

I definitely am not insisting on removing the branding, - once again,
it just felt unfair for the samba team to brand things like this,
like debian (or ubuntu) wrongly appropriated samba to themselves,
that's all.

/mjt