<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On May 3, 2012, at 9:24 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 02:26:27PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">I've drafted a message that I'd like to send to Christian publicly<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Cc:-ing this list. It is attached to this mail for review by the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">pkg-multimedia team. (Yes, I know this is a public list and Christian<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">will likely read it before the review, but I don't particularly mind: it<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">will just anticipate a public discussion we'd like to have anyhow.)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I'd appreciate your feedback on it.<br></blockquote><br>I've now patched my first draft trying to take into account your<br>feedback without changing the substance of the message I think we should<br>send through. The new draft is attached.<br><br>You're feedback is, again, very welcome.<br>If you have no further changes to suggest or objections, I can send it<br>this week-end.<br><br>Either way, please let me know,<br>Cheers.<br>-- <br>Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,<a href="http://pps.jussieu.fr">pps.jussieu.fr</a>,debian.org} . o .<br>Maître de conférences ...... <a href="http://upsilon.cc/zack">http://upsilon.cc/zack</a> ...... . . o<br>Debian Project Leader ....... @zack on <a href="http://identi.ca">identi.ca</a> ....... o o o<br>« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »<br><br><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Stefano Zacchiroli <<a href="mailto:leader@debian.org">leader@debian.org</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">May 3, 2012 9:22:49 AM EDT<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Christian Marillat <<a href="mailto:marillat@debian.org">marillat@debian.org</a>>, <a href="mailto:marillat@free.fr">marillat@free.fr</a><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>Cc: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:pkg-multimedia-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org">pkg-multimedia-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org</a><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>Bcc: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:leader@debian.org">leader@debian.org</a><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(127, 127, 127, 1.0);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>on package duplication between Debian and debian-multimedia</b><br></span></div><br><br>Dear Christian,<br> as you probably are aware of, there are recurring discussions on the<br>package duplication between the official Debian archive and the<br><a href="http://debian-multimedia.org">debian-multimedia.org</a> ("d-m.o" from now on) that you maintain.<br><br>AFAIK, the Debian team in charge of maintaining multimedia packages<br>(that I'm Cc:-ing) is not happy about the duplication and has approached<br>you about that [1], providing some evidence of the troubles that it<br>causes to them and to Debian users that also happen to use d-m.o. OTOH<br>I'm sure you are maintaining d-m.o to provide a useful service to Debian<br>users, when some of the packages you distribute are not available in<br>Debian proper.<br><br>[1] <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-March/025498.html">http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/2012-March/025498.html</a><br><br>Personally, I think that principle is fine, but I'm worried about the<br>duplication part. Not only due to the troubles that it might cause to<br>users, but also for the apparent waste of maintenance energies. Energies<br>that could be put into better use if you and the pkg-multimedia team<br>could find a way to collaborate, and to do so contributing to the<br>*official* Debian packaging of the concerned software.<br><br>I have no specific opinion on the technical claims that d-m.o causes<br>trouble to official Debian packages. That might be true or not. Ditto<br>for your allegations of conflict of interest in the maintenance of<br>ffmpeg or libav in Debian. But I observe that *in* Debian we do have<br>mechanisms to solve that kind of issues, if and when they arise. As long<br>as you keep on doing your work outside Debian instead of raising your<br>concerns within Debian, we'll have to keep on assuming that what is<br>being done in Debian is fine and is entitled to the official status that<br>come with the name "Debian".<br><br>Thinking about it, I think we should choose one of the two possible way<br>forward:<br><br>1) You and the pkg-multimedia team reach an agreement on<br> which-packages-belong-where. One way to settle would be that for<br> every package that exist in the official Debian archive, the same<br> package should not exist in d-m.o, unless it has a version that does<br> not interfere with the official packages in "standard" Debian<br> installations. Another way would be to rename packages and sonames.<br><br> I understand that such agreements would give a sort of "advantage" to<br> the pkg-multimedia people over d-m.o, but that seems to be warranted<br> by the fact that they are doing the official packaging, while you're<br> not. If, as I hope, you could start doing your packaging work<br> (wherever possible) within Debian as well, things would be different<br> and we could consider solving potential technical conflicts in the<br> usual Debian way.<br><br>2) You stop using "debian" as part of the domain name of your<br> repository, which is confusing for users (e.g. [2,3]). That would<br> allow each part to keep on doing what they want in terms of<br> packaging, but at least would remove any of the existings doubts<br> about the official status of d-m.o.<br><br> [2] <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660924#20">http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=660924#20</a><br> [3] <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=668308#47">http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=668308#47</a><br><br> I can imagine that would be a painful step for you to take, given the<br> well established domain name. But it seems fair to ask you to do so<br> if we couldn't manage to find an agreement between you and the<br> official Debian packaging initiative of software you're maintaining<br> in an unofficial repository.<br><br>We could also consider various in-between solutions, such as adding<br>suitable prominent disclaimers on your website explaining that your<br>initiative is not affiliated with the Debian Project, that it might<br>cause technical incompatibilities with official packages, and that the<br>donations you're collecting are for you personally and not for the<br>Debian Project.<br><br>I hope we can reach an agreement on (some variants of) point (1). I'm<br>personally convinced d-m.o could offer a very useful service to Debian<br>users, for packages that are not part of the official archive. But d-m.o<br>really needs to do so in a way that doesn't get in the way of official<br>packaging activities, otherwise it will remain a perennial source of<br>conflicts, to the detriment of both parties.<br><br>What do you think?<br><br>Cheers.<br><br>PS we really want this discussion to be public, so please keep the<br> pkg-multimedia-maintainers list Cc:-ed, as requested with my M-F-T<br> header. I'll otherwise take the liberty to forward your replies to<br> the list myself.<br>-- <br>Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,<a href="http://pps.jussieu.fr">pps.jussieu.fr</a>,debian.org} . o .<br>Maître de conférences ...... <a href="http://upsilon.cc/zack">http://upsilon.cc/zack</a> ...... . . o<br>Debian Project Leader ....... @zack on <a href="http://identi.ca">identi.ca</a> ....... o o o<br>« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »<br></blockquote></div><br><div><br></div><div>Well written and even handed while clearly addressing the issues. Nice work!</div><div><br></div><div>.hc</div></body></html>