Conflicting Goals Create Tension in OSS Community

An anonymous reader writes "Mark Shuttleworth, of Ubuntu, has a post up meant to clear the air and clarify the project's place in the Debian community. He's specifically referring to comments made by Matthew Garrett earlier this month." From the post: "A little introspection is healthy, and Debian will benefit from the discussion. Matt is to be credited for his open commentary - a lesser person would simply have disengaged, quietly. I hope that Matt will in fact stay involved in Debian, either directly or through Ubuntu, because his talent and humour are both of enormous benefit to the project. I also hope that Debian developers will make better use of the work we do in Ubuntu, integrating relevant bits of it back into Debian so as to help uplift some of those other peaks - Xandros, Linspire, Maemo, Skolelinux and of course Etch."

Comments

Please

[sofar]

Don't confuse debian with "The OSS Community". They are really not the same, and there is no such thing as "The OSS Community".

Re:Please

[The Bungi]

Interesting. Whenever there's a trace of disagreement or problem then there is no such thing as a "community". When everything is going great and there's a "common enemy" like Microsoft or whatever, then the "community" comes together and fights like a team.

You really can't have it both ways.

And not to imply that this is "bad" in any way - I was just struck by this comment attached to this particular story. The next time Slashdork posts the usual "what does the community think?" or "the community must do something about this!!" I wonder if I'll see a post making this same point. Probably not.

a mile away

[macadamia_harold]

Conflicting Goals Create Tension in OSS Community

Yeah, anyone who's ever gotten even remotely involved in wikipedia could have seen this one coming a mile away. This is why, at work, you have "project managers", that have final say (and yet, also take the burden and responsibility of making decisions).

Re:a mile away

[Penguin Programmer]

Of course, most open-source projects also have project managers. Of course, usually we call them maintainers, but they essentially serve the same purpose: review submitted code/content and decide whether it should be included in the production version of the product.

we are never going to agree on how to do things...

[karlk79]

And that is a good thing. Linux is moving along at a great pace, even with the little spats here and there. I love that there is alot of different ideas, with people to push them through.

Re:let the arguments rage

[popsicle67]

No such thing as an unresolvable conflict, there are only unresolvable egos

Re:[Debian|Ubuntu] can't be everything to everyone

[Deb-fanboy]

Although [Debian|Ubuntu] can't be everything to everyone, I am amazed by the breadth of Debian. If I set-up a standard linux PC for a friend then I would use Ubuntu but there are so many niches that can be filled by Debian and huge choice for the user. For example I recently set up Debian testing on a laptop with no cdrom by using a couple of floppy instal disks and an ethernet connection to an internet connected router. On the web there are a huge number of friendly resources and articles to help set-up your debian system.

A disturbing lack of thought is manifest.

[MostAwesomeDude]

I would say that the line, "Ubuntu could not exist without Debian," is not an opinion. It is fact. Does this mean that Ubuntu owes anything to Debian? Not really. Other than the GPL obligations, there really isn't anything that Debian could or should ask for in return from Ubuntu.

Anybody who has worked with Debian already should have a deep and profound respect for the fact that Debian is plain and broad. When you sit down at a Debian computer, you are seated before a gateway to what might be the most customizable distribution in existence. All of the packages are roughly as far away as "$ sudo aptitude", and it is all but guaranteed that no matter how complicated or convoluted the package you want is, it will be downloaded and installed, along with dependencies, and you don't have to worry about a damn thing. (If you've ever compiled your own VLC or GIMP, you know what I'm talking about.)

The problem is that people would like to see specialization in Debian. Debian is not for specialization. It's for everybody to make what they want. Taking that away from Debian compromises the entire goal of the project...