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

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Mon, 2024-04-08 at 08:37 +0300, Michael Tokarev wrote:
> 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
> becausethere's nothing really debian (or ubuntu) in the debian samba
> package, itseemed a bit unfair to add our (debian) label to the goods
> not made bydebian, so to say.  It is the samba team who wrote the
> code, and in myview, by adding "debian" label, debian claims it added
> something valuableto samba, which is untrue.  It's not about "we're
> not to blame", mythoughts was entirely due to "who to thank", so to
> say.
> This change has been made at a somewhat unfortunate moment, - I
> thoughtabout this, made a commit in my local tree, and asked around
> if thisthing is okay.  And next, a t64-related bug report has come
> which neededfixing, 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
> timeit existed.  It is more, it looks like without this upload I
> wouldn'thave know the answer anyway :)

And only because I read that particular commit e-mail. 
> Having your reasons in mind, I still think this is wrong to have
> thebranding in debian.  The only still-relevant change which
> makesdebian/ubuntu packages different from upstream is enabling of
> usershares by default (a change I think is very wrong exactly due
> toit being different from upstream), and I want to address this
> (andit still isn't very important in context of bug reports since if
> thequestion will be about user shares it will be obvious they're
> enabled).All the rest are just trivial bugfixes (or adjustments for
> inadequatelog levels - but which actually might be confusing when
> debugging), -I especially refuse to change the code in a way which
> might changebehavior compared to the upstream samba.

It is more about where files might be located, and if it was extended
to include the full package version, it would allow absolute certainty
on matching lines in debug messages to source. 
It would be good to get the rest of the patches upstream if possible.
> 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.

Packaging is an important part of the task of getting Samba to our
users, but as I said before it really was asked for to aid debugging. 
I'm pretty sure the SerNet samba.plus packages use this also, to
likewise avoid confusion. 
And now I need to go to our friends building RPM packages to see if we
can get then do this also, I don't a reference to this in the Fedora
Rawhide ;-)
Thanks for your understanding,
Andrew Bartlett-- 
Andrew Bartlett (he/him)       https://samba.org/~abartlet/
Samba Team Member (since 2001) https://samba.org
Samba Team Lead                https://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba
Catalyst.Net Ltd


Proudly developing Samba for Catalyst.Net Ltd - a Catalyst IT group
company

Samba Development and Support: https://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba

Catalyst IT - Expert Open Source Solutions



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-samba-maint/attachments/20240409/e2a6ab98/attachment.htm>