Matthew Garrett ([info]mjg59) wrote,
@ 2005-09-14 22:59:00
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"At this stage I do not want to commit the DCCA to using the official Debian kernel-image debs"

NOT A FORK.

Ian, why not drop this "We will not fork Debian" crap? You're not going to be identical to Debian. It would be *insane* for you to be identical to Debian. Various packages that Debian ships are not suited to the market that you're aiming at supporting. "Fork" is not a dirty word - it's something that's happened repeatedly throughout the free software world. I'm not complaining about anything that you're doing or the manner in which you're doing it, merely the plainly dishonest claim that this isn't a fork.

(For those who have some difficulty with this argument: a fork is when a bifurcation occurs that separates something into two brances or parts. Taking the Debian kernel source and applying different patches to it results in it being a separate branch - the point at which they split is a fork. It's possible that "fork" means something different in whichever language you speak, and I'm entirely happy to admit that the only one that I speak with any degree of fluency is English. If it turns out that I'm horribly mistaken and the DCC website is written in Flemish or something, then I'll happily retract my accusations of it being quite horribly misleading)

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(Anonymous)
2005-09-15 07:03 pm UTC (link)
I disagree with this.

Debian already maintains a lot of kernel image packages. Does the introduction of, say, kernel-image-*-k7 package in addition to the plain *-i386 package consisted a fork? I don't think so.

The same is with kernel packages offering different functionalities. I have been dreaming of a kernel-image-*-desktop series of packages, that would have desktop-oriented patches like supermount etc. compiled in, and could happily miss some things that are generally needed only by server installations. (A kernel-image-*-server package would also be welcome.) Would these consist a fork?

If not, then a kernel-image-*-lsb30 package would not be a fork, too. You get it along with all other kernel image packages, etc. What's the problem here?

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[info]mjg59
2005-09-15 07:32 pm UTC (link)
The Debian kernel package is certainly a fork of the upstream kernel source. Multiple packages built from the same source aren't generally considered forks - they're binaries with different configuration options. But yes, different "flavours" of kernels with different patches applied are what I'd consider forks too.

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(Anonymous)
2005-09-15 07:05 pm UTC (link)
(Add-on to the previous comment)

For the protocol, my name is Grigor Gatchev, and I am not affiliated in any way with DCC or whatever. I just believe that there is a way to integrate the DCC products into Debian just like all other packages.

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(Anonymous)
2005-09-15 08:15 pm UTC (link)
Well, the Flemish word "vork" has the same meaning as the English word "fork", so don't be afraid of any misunderstanding from over here. :-P

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