24 Sep
2009
24 Sep
'09
10:47 p.m.
All,
Until now I was naively thinking that The Source of any package
was where 'It' was. Eg. To get, compile and install a package,
the web page of the package's project was where to get it.
A colleague at work started to seed some doubt. He's totally
pro-Debian and one argument is that the Debian people are
patching source packages to fix things. And they eventually
submit their patches upstream. And some are sometimes rejected,
for whatever reasons.
Following that thought, then we can say that the Fedora/Red Hat
people are no fools either and they also patch source packages to
fix things. And they also submit to upstream. And it could be
that some of these patches do not make into the upstream package
for whatever reasons.
And then the SuSE people, the Mandriva people, the 64Studio
people ...
Would this then mean that actually a distro can be better than
another in a slice of time t ? That you would not find that
Qjackctl or Ardour (only examples, no bugs in there .. :-) bug if
you use distro x over distro y ?
What are your opinions on this ? Are any of you believing that
using a certain distro brings more stability regarding the
applications ? This is not about the integration of all
applications into the system/desktop but rather strictly on a
software development/bug fix basis. Can one distro be better than
another because of the fixes the maintainers of that distro do on
the packages ?
Cheers.
25 Sep
25 Sep
12:40 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
Double-edged sword.
Due to this patching frenzy, there are numerous possibilities of
less-than-optimal software packages. Bugs will be difficult to troubleshoot
because the final product is not the same as upstream.
The developer of a software knows best. Even if he does not, he has the
right to determine how his software should be used, what should be patched,
what should be improved.
10:01 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
On Thursday 24 September 2009 22:39:58 Ray Rashif wrote:
Even if he does not, he has the
right to determine how his software should be used, what should be patched,
what should be improved.
Ah... What?!!! The right? (As in it some how has some bearing on us and our
rights as users of that same software and our rights to determine such things
for ourselves?) Please explain your thinking here. I can see such thinking
from the non-Free world, but not sure how what I see being said fits in the
Free world. (So perhaps I am seeing something that was not said...??
all the best,
drew
6:56 p.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
2009/9/25 drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com>
On Thursday 24 September 2009 22:39:58 Ray Rashif
wrote:
Uhh..no. He has the right in his domain. A third-party has his rights as
well, and that's when it's called a "fork" :) So let me simplify:
You don't like it, then take it your way.
We're lucky our devs are friendly. Well, most of them.
Even if he does not, he has the
right to determine how his software should be used, what should be
patched,
what should be improved.
Ah... What?!!! The right? (As in it some how has some bearing on us and our
rights as users of that same software and our rights to determine such
things
for ourselves?) Please explain your thinking here. I can see such thinking
from the non-Free world, but not sure how what I see being said fits in the
Free world. (So perhaps I am seeing something that was not said...??
all the best,
drew
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
10:28 p.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
On Friday 25 September 2009 16:56:12 Ray Rashif wrote:
2009/9/25 drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com>
I don't know if I like it or not as I was not speaking to the particular issue
at hand but to the general.
Below modded a bit for layour purposes:
"Even if he does not, he has the right to determine:
how his software should be used,
what should be patched,
what should be improved."
Within any developer's copy of their code, I agree with the second two, but
the right to determine how it should be used once in the hands of users? (If
that is what you meant, I don't think I agree with that. If you meant
something else, another clarification would be appreciated.
all the best,
drew
On Thursday 24 September 2009 22:39:58 Ray Rashif
wrote:
Uhh..no. He has the right in his domain. A third-party has his rights as
well, and that's when it's called a "fork" :) So let me simplify:
You don't like it, then take it your way.
We're lucky our devs are friendly. Well, most of them. Even if he does not, he has the
right to determine how his software should be used, what should be
patched,
what should be improved.
Ah... What?!!! The right? (As in it some how has some bearing on us and
our rights as users of that same software and our rights to determine
such things
for ourselves?) Please explain your thinking here. I can see such
thinking from the non-Free world, but not sure how what I see being said
fits in the Free world. (So perhaps I am seeing something that was not
said...??
all the best,
drew
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
26 Sep
26 Sep
4:15 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
2009/9/26 drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com>
On Friday 25 September 2009 16:56:12 Ray Rashif
wrote:
I don't know if I like it or not as I was not speaking to the particular
issue
at hand but to the general.
Below modded a bit for layour purposes:
"Even if he does not, he has the right to determine:
how his software should be used,
what should be patched,
what should be improved."
Within any developer's copy of their code, I agree with the second two, but
the right to determine how it should be used once in the hands of users?
(If
that is what you meant, I don't think I agree with that. If you meant
something else, another clarification would be appreciated.
all the best,
drew
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
Yes, I agree you've spotted my mistake there ;)
2009/9/25 drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com>
> On Thursday 24 September 2009 22:39:58 Ray Rashif wrote:
> > Even if he does not, he has the
> > right to determine how his software should be used, what should be
>
> patched,
>
> > what should be improved.
>
> Ah... What?!!! The right? (As in it some how has some bearing on us and
> our rights as users of that same software and our rights to determine
> such things
> for ourselves?) Please explain your thinking here. I can see such
> thinking from the non-Free world, but not sure how what I see being
said
fits in
the Free world. (So perhaps I am seeing something that was not
said...??
all the best,
drew
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
Uhh..no. He has the right in his domain. A third-party has his rights as
well, and that's when it's called a "fork" :) So let me simplify:
You don't like it, then take it your way.
We're lucky our devs are friendly. Well, most of them.
10:33 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
On Saturday 26 September 2009 02:15:33 Ray Rashif wrote:
Yes, I agree you've spotted my mistake there ;)
~;-) Cool, just wondering if there was something I was failing to consider all
these years... (It has happened to me more than once unfortunately...)
drew
9:10 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
On Fri, 2009-09-25 at 10:39 +0800, Ray Rashif wrote:
The developer of a software knows best. Even if he
does not, he has
the right to determine how his software should be used, what should be
patched, what should be improved.
The way I see this the creator of a creative work including software,
music etc. has various rights which include being identified as the
creator and determining who may copy or use the work, for what purpose
and how it may be adapted. These rights are enshrined in copyright law.
The creator may do various things with the rights:
1. He may sell or give rights to other people outright.
2. He may license one or more people to use some or all of his rights
and in so doing he may ask for royalies.
In the principles above 'he' also means 'she' or the legal person that
is a company or corporation for the case when the work was created in
the course of employment by that company.
The model above applies to the whole of the creative work industry
including books, films, music and computer software and for computer
software applies both to proprietary software and free software.
The big difference between free and proprietary software is not what
rights the creator starts with but what he then does with them.
In proprietary software the right to produce a derivative work (which
includes patched/improved versions) is typically reserved (retained by
the creator) and typically the only right licensed to the end user is
one to use the software as-is. It does not matter for this purpose if a
royalty is charged for this license.
In free software the creator typically gives away the right to make
derivative works though with certain restrictions. Depending on the set
of restrictions he is happy with he chooses a license such as the GPL or
one of the Berkeley-style licenses.
So, when we are talking about free software it is very likely the
creator is happy for others to create patches but to be completely sure
we must check which license applies and the terms of that license.
In the case a distribution like Debian making patches they well
understand these licenses having published a definition of which
licenses they consider to "free software" licenses and analysed the
common open source licenses against those criteria.
Regards,
Steve.
11:04 a.m.
New subject: Patch wars ? Debian vs. Fedora vs. ...
On Saturday 26 September 2009 07:10:11 Steve Fosdick wrote:
The way I see this the creator of a creative work
including software,
music etc. has various rights which include being identified as the
creator and determining who may copy or use the work, for what purpose
and how it may be adapted. These rights are enshrined in copyright law.
I am not taking a position by posting any of the following.
Crudely worded, seems to me that the FSF's position is that copyright law got
it wrong when it comes to functional works like code and that the creator
does not or should not have these rights over the work. The GPL with the
Freedoms it mentions and the copyleft it embodies is an attempt in their
minds to put the put the wrongs of copyright right. (Couldn't resist the bit
of word play. Hopefully it is still clear.)
Crosbie Fitch over at Digital Productions (if I get him right and can express
it correctly in summary form) holds that there are Natural Rights when it
comes to Intellectual Property but that they are not what is generally
believed and that copyright law does not so much protect these rights that a
creator does have but rather gives monopoly powers that the creator should
not have. http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/
So, when we are talking about free software it is very
likely the
creator is happy for others to create patches but to be completely sure
we must check which license applies and the terms of that license.
When I speak of Free Software, I am referring to software with one of the
accepted Free licenses. If it is gratis and not libre, I generally refer to
it as freeware but the topic does not often come up these days in my neck of
the woods.
all the best,
drew
25 Sep
25 Sep
2:53 a.m.
lanas wrote:
All,
Until now I was naively thinking that The Source of any package
was where 'It' was. Eg. To get, compile and install a package,
the web page of the package's project was where to get it.
A colleague at work started to seed some doubt. He's totally
pro-Debian and one argument is that the Debian people are
patching source packages to fix things. And they eventually
submit their patches upstream. And some are sometimes rejected,
for whatever reasons.
Following that thought, then we can say that the Fedora/Red Hat
people are no fools either and they also patch source packages to
fix things. And they also submit to upstream. And it could be
that some of these patches do not make into the upstream package
for whatever reasons.
And then the SuSE people, the Mandriva people, the 64Studio
people ...
Would this then mean that actually a distro can be better than
another in a slice of time t ? That you would not find that
Qjackctl or Ardour (only examples, no bugs in there .. :-) bug if
you use distro x over distro y ?
What are your opinions on this ? Are any of you believing that
using a certain distro brings more stability regarding the
applications ? This is not about the integration of all
applications into the system/desktop but rather strictly on a
software development/bug fix basis. Can one distro be better than
another because of the fixes the maintainers of that distro do on
the packages ?
Possibly. But I suspect that the quality of the maintainers of
individual packages various, and averages out to be about the same,
regardless of distro.
I like Debian because I think it has a better package management system
than RedHat, but that's just personal preference. There are folk that
prefer distros like Gentoo because it makes configuring and compiling
from source very easy, so their view of package management will be
different.
I've never pursued the cutting edge when it comes to audio software in
particular. For awhile, I ran a mixed Debian Testing/Experimental setup,
with the rarewares repository included, but I got tired of simple
updates taking down the entire system. ;-)
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
4:59 p.m.
On Thu, 24 Sep 2009, lanas wrote:
Until now I was naively thinking that The Source of
any package was
where 'It' was. Eg. To get, compile and install a package, the web
page of the package's project was where to get it.
A colleague at work started to seed some doubt. He's totally
pro-Debian and one argument is that the Debian people are patching
source packages to fix things. And they eventually submit their
patches upstream. And some are sometimes rejected, for whatever
reasons.
This is completely IMHO, of course:
I think Debian's changes are 99% helpful with things at the shell level.
I run Debian for almost all our Linux servers at work, because for a
server, they're hard to beat, and they really do fix a lot of userland
problems that other distros don't worry about.
At the desktop/X11 level though, I think 99% of their patches amount to
screwing with stuff that already worked, which upstream developers are
already taking care of. It creates a divergent desktop environment that
is a Franken-mix of stuff from upstream and stuff from Debian.
Sometimes you have problems that are unknown on other distros, and would
baffle upstream developers.
[...]
Would this then mean that actually a distro can be
better than
another in a slice of time t ? That you would not find that
Qjackctl or Ardour (only examples, no bugs in there .. :-) bug if
you use distro x over distro y ?
Absolutely. I used Debian from 2.0 ("hamm") through 3.0 ("woody").
During that time, they got mostly better. Then woody started getting
extremely dated, as the next version was literally taking years. I
switched to Suse, and liked it for awhile, until they got worse. Then
Debian got better and I switched back, until they got worse again.
The thing I think I learned from this is that unless you want to be
constantly switching distros, the only way to keep things the way you
like them is if you manage the system build policy yourself. That's why
I'm running Gentoo now, and it feels like being let out of prison. You
can finally really be in control. (And pro audio apps really work now!)
--
+ Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
+ UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will
+ University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of
+ Physical Sciences Div. + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet,
+ James Franck Institute + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky
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10 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Brent Busby -
david -
drew Roberts -
lanas -
Ray Rashif -
Steve Fosdick