Slashdot Mirror
Freespire Lives, Goes Back To Debian
nerdyH writes "Following Xandros's acquisition of Linspire, some feared for the future of Freespire, the free version of Linspire. However, Xandros today announced a new version of Freespire that will return the popular free Linux distro to its Debian-based roots."
My point still stands. The Ubuntu devs could have focused their efforts on Debian. Their distro today still is binary compatible with Debian.
Actually, they have focused their attention on Debian. You would have to examine Ubuntu and Debian source packages to really see just how much effort Ubuntu is putting into Debian.
In every distro there is a list of stuff that nobody wants to do. For instance, getting 'bashisms' out of init and other shell scripts so that a fully POSIX compatible shell (such as dash) can parse them correctly. Ubuntu tackled a lot of that list.
If you look at the Ubuntu source packages, you will see a ton of patches in debian/ , Ubuntu has structured their patches so that Debian can cherry pick from their improvements easily. Debian has and will continue to do this. For instance, if Debian just wants the patch that takes bashisms out of a given script, they can just take that and leave the rest.
Similarly, Debian security updates and other things are easily cherry picked by Ubuntu. Managing patches like this is very time consuming, Ubuntu could have said 'screw that' but they didn't.
Its a rather interesting symbiosis. While the projects are going in separate directions, devs from both camps continue to ensure that improvements remain isolated and rather portable.
My desktop is a mix of Ubuntu and Debian packages, for instance. Most things I use begin with Debian source packages, then I grab the Ubuntu source packages and get the patches that I want ... then make my own thing. Granted, this isn't typical use but it illustrates the benefits of a larger cooperative effort.