debian-multimedia.org considered harmful - redux

Thu Apr 19 15:34:49 UTC 2012

On Apr 13, 2012 2:04 AM, "Reinhard Tartler" <siretart at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:26 PM, Stefano Zacchiroli <leader at debian.org>
wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 04, 2012 at 01:07:44PM +0200, Alessio Treglia wrote:
> >> Stefano, I think it's time to give you a clear answer, which is:
> >
> > Hi Alessio et al.,
> >  thank you for this answer and to Andres for having pointed me to past
> > exchanges on this subject.
> >
> > I've drafted a message that I'd like to send to Christian publicly
> > Cc:-ing this list. It is attached to this mail for review by the
> > pkg-multimedia team. (Yes, I know this is a public list and Christian
> > will likely read it before the review, but I don't particularly mind: it
> > will just anticipate a public discussion we'd like to have anyhow.)
>
> As usual, a very well drafted and balanced mail!
>
> > I'd appreciate your feedback on it.
>
> Let me comment inline.
> >
> > In particular, I'd like to know what exactly you'd like to ask d-m.o to
> > do: I've speculated a request as part of my point (1), but it'd be
> > better if you could comment on that, to transform my speculation in
> > something you approve of.
> >
> > TIA,
> > Cheers.
> > --
> > Stefano Zacchiroli     zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
> > Maître de conférences   ......   http://upsilon.cc/zack   ......   . . o
> > Debian Project Leader    .......   @zack on identi.ca   .......    o o o
> > « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Stefano Zacchiroli <leader at debian.org>
> > To: Christian Marillat <marillat at debian.org>, marillat at free.fr
> > Cc: pkg-multimedia-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:25:45 +0200
> > Subject: on package duplication between Debian and debian-multimedia
> > Dear Christian,
> >  as you probably are aware of, there are recurring discussions on the
> > package duplication between the official Debian archive and the
> > debian-multimedia.org ("d-m.o" from now on) that you maintain.
> >
> > AFAIK, the Debian team in charge of maintaining multimedia packages
> > (that I'm Cc:-ing) is not happy about the duplication and has approached
> > you about that [1], providing some evidence of the troubles that it
> > causes to them and to Debian users that also happen to use d-m.o. OTOH
> > I'm sure you are maintaining d-m.o to provide a useful service to Debian
> > users, when some of the packages you distribute are not available in
> > Debian proper.
> >
> > [1]
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-March/025498.html
> >
> > Personally, I think that principle is fine, but I'm worried about the
> > duplication part. Not only due to the troubles that it might cause, but
> > also (and more importantly) for the apparent waste of maintenance
> > energies. Energies that could be put into better use if you and the
> > pkg-multimedia team could find a way to collaborate, and to do so
> > contributing to the *official* Debian packaging of the concerned
> > software.
>
> The harm is not only on the waste of maintainers time side, but also
> on the users side. In particular, have a look at
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660924, where a
> confused user gets very angry because he did not understand my
> response (#5). Fabian tried to explain it to him (#10) but it turns
> out in #20 that the original reporter did neither understand the
> technical notion of an 'epoch' in the version number, nor that "d-m.o"
> is not an "official" debian mirror.

I agree that this also adds to confusion amongst users and wastes their
time. See bug #668308 message #47. Here a user came to realize that xbmc
does not run with libraries from dmo.

> > I have no specific opinion on the technical claims that d-m.o causes
> > trouble to official Debian packages. That might be true or not. Ditto
> > for your allegations of conflict of interest in the maintenance of
> > ffmpeg or libav in Debian. But I observe that *in* Debian we do have
> > mechanisms to solve that kind of issues, if and when they arise. As long
> > as you keep on doing your work outside Debian instead of raising your
> > concerns within Debian, we'll have to keep on assuming that what is
> > being done in Debian is fine and is entitled to the official status that
> > come with the name "Debian".
> >
> > Thinking about it, I think we should choose one of the two possible way
> > forward:
> >
> > 1) You and the pkg-multimedia team reach an agreement on
> >   which-packages-belong-where. I speculate their request would be that
> >   for every package that exist in the official Debian archive, the same
> >   package should not exist in d-m.o, unless it has a version that does
> >   not interfere with the official packages in "standard" Debian
> >   installations.
>
> Well, I guess renaming packages, and for shared libraries changing
> sonames, would be acceptable as well. Note that this has been done for
> the FFmpeg library packages in the past. It turned out to be quite
> some pain, but maintaing the custom soname is surely feasible.
>
> >   I understand that such an agreement gives a sort of "advantage" to
> >   the pkg-multimedia people over d-m.o, but that seems to be warranted
> >   by the fact that they are doing the official packaging, while you're
> >   not.  If, as I hope, you could start doing your packaging work
> >   (wherever possible) within Debian as well, things would be different
> >   and we could consider solving potential technical conflicts in the
> >   usual Debian way.
> >
> > 2) You stop using "debian" as part of the domain name of your
> >   repository. That would allow each part to keep on doing what they
> >   want in terms of packaging, but at least would remove any of the
> >   existings doubts about the official status of d-m.o.
>
> Maybe add a reference to
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660924#20 here?
>
> >   I can imagine that would be a painful step for you to take, given the
> >   well established domain name. But it seems fair to ask you to do so
> >   if we couldn't manage to find an agreement between you and the
> >   official Debian packaging initiative of software you're maintaining
> >   in an unofficial repository.
> >
> > I hope we can reach an agreement on (some variants of) point (1). I'm
> > personally convinced d-m.o could offer a very useful service to Debian
> > users, for packages that are not part of the official archive. But d-m.o
> > really needs to do so in a way that doesn't get in the way of official
> > packaging activities, otherwise it will remain a perennial source of
> > conflicts, to the detriment of both parties.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Cheers.
> >
> > PS we really want this discussion to be public, so please keep the
> >   pkg-multimedia-maintainers list Cc:-ed, as requested with my M-F-T
> >   header. I'll otherwise take the liberty to forward your replies to
> >   the list myself.
>
> Thanks for this draft, I think it is really a step forward. I'm
> curious if and and how Christian responds.
>
>
> --
> regards,
>     Reinhard
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