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Re: future of Debian's derivatives efforts?

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Excerpts from Paul Wise's message of maj 1, 2018 9:10 am:
> I have realised I haven't found the motivation & time to work on 
> Debian's derivatives efforts in recent months and have been less 
> active in recent years so now might be a good time to discuss the 
> future of these efforts.
> 
> I prefer this thread to be solely from Debian's perspective.
> I'll start another thread on debian-derivatives for the other side.
> 
> To that end, some questions:
> 
> Are folks aware of our derivatives efforts?

Yes! It has been a tremendous help in my work encouraging derivatives to 
[reduce/eliminate] their delta from Debian.

First concrete use of mine was in 2011, during a 3-month journey in 
[Asia] sponsored partly by Debian (thanks!). I met with developers of 
the India government-sponsored BOSS Linux, but unfortunately we had only 
one day together, so it was extremely helpful to be able to go through 
http://deriv.debian.net/BOSSlinux/patches/ with them, to point out 
concrete examples of things they could consider do differently, either 
to more efficiently share their innovative work upstream with Debian and 
others, or simply to reduce maintenance for them.

Since then I have passionately recommended derivatives to register with 
the Derivatives Census, and explore the computed patch set, whereever I 
could - in particular during my later journeys in [Peru] and [India], 
and most recently in my current employment at Purism SPC.

[reduce/eliminate]: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends
 
[Asia]: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20130101160016/http://wiki.jones.dk/DebianAsia2011

[Peru]: https://couchdesign.dk/peru

[India]: https://couchdesign.dk/india


> Do we need formal efforts around derivatives at all or
> should we just let things happen (or not) organically?

Yes, we need this.  It is exactly the structured approach that I have 
found so useful in my work: Each project models their work slightly 
differently, and Derivatives Census helps in comparing across these 
differently modelled moving targets.

I find esp. the current opt-in approach of the Derivatives Census good. 
Derivatives typically want full autonomy - and only later, maybe, wants 
to realign with Debian.


> Has Debian found any value in our derivatives efforts?

Yes.  Not only have I found value personally in my Debian work (see 
above), but I choose to believe that Debian has also more concretely 
enjoyed upstreaming efforts thanks to the Derivatives Census work which 
would have otherwise not been done.


> Which aspects of them would Debian miss if they went away?

Debian would - I choose to believe - miss patches, now passed upstream 
by those derivatives who wants to avoid drifting too far from Debian but 
not having the disciplin to track their deviations on their own.

I would - as Debian developer - miss a practical tool to compare Debian 
with its derivatives and help them improve in their passing their 
innovations upstream (see my journeys above).

More concretely, the parts I have appreciated mostly so far are the 
package lists and patches e.g. 
http://deriv.debian.net/BOSSlinux/diff_source_packages and 
http://deriv.debian.net/BOSSlinux/patches/ - and to some extend the wiki 
pages https://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census/* themselves.

I am sure there are other great uses that I myself simply haven't 
realized yet (i.e. I wouldn't exactly _miss_ them - so arguably off 
topif of your question ;-) ).


> Are there any changes we should make to our derivatives efforts?

Gather geolocation for derivatives with a geographic scope, and 
geo-mapping (i.e. visualization e.g. on a slippy map) - both to 
encourage collaboration across derivatives, and to aid "missionaries" 
like myself organize journeys.


> Are there any things we should prioritise for our derivatives efforts?

Aspects that helps the derivative see themselves in comparison with 
Debian and other derivatives.

I am aware that this thread is about the Debian point of view, and I 
agree that we should discuss details of the derivative POV separately.  
My point mentioning it here is that Debian benefits from derivatives 
telling about themselves, and we best make them tell about themselves 
when the setting we provide them to do so is to their own benefit: I 
have had difficulties convincing derivatives to do the effort of 
"reporting to Debian what they are all about" - especially the ones that 
are succesful (which arguably is the ones we want info from the most).

So I look forward to the companion thread at the census list :-)


> Are there any volunteers to join the derivatives efforts?

I volunteer to setup and maintain a slippy map, if that is of interest. 
Already have similar setups I can adapt, so should not be too much work.

I looked briefly at the scripts to maintain patches, and can maybe offer 
to help there - if Perl and shell code is ok (I notice both being 
present but Python being dominant, but didn't see any notice whether 
there's a preference or any code is equally appreciated for that).


> Are there any volunteers to organise derivatives events at DebConf18?
> 
> I'd love to have some feedback on the new derivatives page on the
> website and if we should have links to that anywhere on the site?
> 
> https://www.debian.org/derivatives/
> 
> Any other comments?

Thanks a lot for all the work establishing and maintaining the 
Derivatives Census!

When first looking at it (in early 2011, I think) it felt too formal to 
me - intuitively it felt unwelcoming to me.  I have since, through my 
hundreds of meetings with derivatives, learned how a more casual 
approach can be easily misunderstood and effectively *less* welcoming.  
Amazing work!


 - Jonas
-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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future of Debian's derivatives efforts? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2018-05-01 09:20 +0200
  Re: future of Debian's derivatives efforts? Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2018-05-01 12:10 +0200
    Re: future of Debian's derivatives efforts? Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2018-05-05 03:40 +0200

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