I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact upstream
authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included in Debian, or not.
My own experience has been that most upstream projects don't care about
Debian.
Some do, of course. But many don't.
With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet
(sometimes it's really a good idea and most of the time it's not
acknowledged, and a few times it's a bad reception).
but it's somewhat disturbing !
That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?

<div dir="ltr"><div>I&#39;m still trying to understand if it&#39;s a good idea to contact upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included in Debian, or not.</div><div>My own experience has been that most upstream projects
don&#39;t care about Debian.</div><div>Some do, of course. But many don&#39;t.</div><div>With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet (sometimes it&#39;s really a good idea and most of the time it&#39;s not acknowledged, and a
few times it&#39;s a bad reception).</div><div>but it&#39;s somewhat disturbing !</div><div>That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?</div><div><br></div></div>

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Copy: kapouer@melix.org (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=E9r=E9my?= Lal)

On Friday, November 22, 2024 12:53:11 PM MST Jérémy Lal wrote:

I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included in Debian, or not.
My own experience has been that most upstream projects don't care about Debian.
Some do, of course. But many don't.
With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet
(sometimes it's really a good idea and most of the time it's not acknowledged, and a few times it's a bad reception).
but it's somewhat disturbing !
That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?

I personally have never had a bad experience communicating with upstream about packaging for Debian, although I am sure it has happened for other people.

During the packaging process, if I have any questions at all, like why is a particular file needed, or how do I work around a particular test failure, or are they aware of a license conflict, I always reach out to them during the initial packaging process. If I don’t have any questions (because the package
is really easy) I will drop them a line once the package has entered Debian with a link to the tracker.debian.org page.

--
Soren Stoutner
soren@debian.org
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It involves more social issues than technical issues that relies on
experience, on a per-upstream
basis, which is never something that can be effectively documented.

I've personally encountered upstreams super happy to hear the bits about inclusion in Debian,
as well as improvement suggestions -- cooperative and friendly upstreams
exist. There are
many good aspects but here I'll mainly discuss the other side.

I've personally also encountered ignorant, or even very hostile
upstreams that immediately
start to attack Debian and its developers once they hear things like
that. Here are some reasons
I observed:

1. Upstream moves at a completely different pace. They may feel bad when receiving bug reports
from the users about an ancient version provided in Debian stable.

2. Upstream is sensitive on build flags. They may get super confused
when receiving bug reports
that only happens when using Debian's different build flags.

3. Upstream holds an objection on Debian's value behind DFSG. This world
is diverse. There are
people who understand why Debian is so strict on those things. And,
there is surely people
who do not understand and not willing to understand it at all. For
instance, some upstreams may
go mad with the +dfsg source stripping which breaks the intended full functionality of the
upstream tarball.

4. Upstream disagrees with Debian's technical solution, like binary
package splits.

Speaking of a safer bet, I agree with you that saying nothing is safer,
unless the upstream
is explicitly supportive to that. As permitted by the free software
licenses, you do not need
to notify the upstream whenever you use, study, modify, or redistribute
the software.

On 11/22/24 11:53, Jérémy Lal wrote:

I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included
in Debian, or not.
My own experience has been that most upstream projects don't care
about Debian.
Some do, of course. But many don't.
With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet (sometimes it's really a good idea and most of the time it's not acknowledged, and a few times it's a bad reception).
but it's somewhat disturbing !
That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?

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I was packaging something this week and noticed they hadn't tagged any
release on git, despite having releases.

I asked them to tag it because it'd be easier for me and they did it within
a couple of hours.

Often in my experience they're happy to have patches too of they make sense outside of Debian.


Il Ven 22 Nov 2024, 20:53 Jérémy Lal <kapouer@melix.org> ha scritto:

I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included in Debian, or not.
My own experience has been that most upstream projects don't care about Debian.
Some do, of course. But many don't.
With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet
(sometimes it's really a good idea and most of the time it's not acknowledged, and a few times it's a bad reception).
but it's somewhat disturbing !
That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?

<div dir="auto"><div>I was packaging something this week and noticed they hadn&#39;t tagged any release on git, despite having releases.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I asked them to tag it because it&#39;d be easier for me and they did it
within a couple of hours.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Often in my experience they&#39;re happy to have patches too of they make sense outside of Debian.</div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Il Ven 22
Nov 2024, 20:53 Jérémy Lal &lt;<a href="mailto:kapouer@melix.org">kapouer@melix.org</a>&gt; ha scritto:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><

I&#39;m still trying to understand if it&#39;s a good idea to contact upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to be included in Debian, or not.</div><div>My own experience has been that most upstream projects don&#39;t care

about Debian.</div><div>Some do, of course. But many don&#39;t.</div><div>With my experience, I realized that saying nothing was a safer bet (sometimes it&#39;s really a good idea and most of the time it&#39;s not acknowledged, and a few times it&#39;
s a bad reception).</div><div>but it&#39;s somewhat disturbing !</div><div>That subtlety in contacting upstream is documented somewhere ?</div><div><br></div></div>
</blockquote></div></div></div>

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I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact
upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to
be included in Debian, or not.

..

So my advice is to go for it, maintaining software in Debian is much
more fun when there is a positive exchange with the upstream.

Were I to encounter an hostile upstream (it has not happened to me yet,
but will surely at some point), I guess I would give up on the related software and go package something else. There is many software out
there that would deserve to be packaged into Debian, so we can afford
to be picky and only work with the nice upstreams.

+100 to this. Personally I find that collaboration with others is the
most rewarding aspect of participating in open source in general, and
all the benefits that come from collaboration and having lots of
eyeballs and also many people innovating is what I think binrgs the
overall largest value to all of humanity. If you come across upstreams
that don't want to collaborate, I suggest you move on to work with
others instead.

You should not avoid contacting upstreams. Eventually they will find
out, and it is much better to reach out early than late. Also, while
packaging in Debian you with 90% certainty come across upstream bugs
and issues that result in patches in Debian, and you should definitely
submit those patches upstream.

To make submitting patches upstream (and rebasing them occasionally if
upstream is slow to merge your submission), I recommend starting the
packaging using the actual upstream git repository and running `git
checkout -b debian/latest` as the first step.

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I'm still trying to understand if it's a good idea to contact
upstream authors and tell them their software is being worked on to
be included in Debian, or not.

I just got around opening two new RFPs, and turn an existing RFP into
an ITP. For each one, I sent a ping upstream.

The responses I got were all overwhelmingly positive:
- https://github.com/bvschaik/julius/issues/739
- https://github.com/deathkiller/jazz2-native/issues/87
- https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/discussions/7556

So my advice is to go for it, maintaining software in Debian is much
more fun when there is a positive exchange with the upstream.

Were I to encounter an hostile upstream (it has not happened to me yet,
but will surely at some point), I guess I would give up on the related
software and go package something else. There is many software out
there that would deserve to be packaged into Debian, so we can afford
to be picky and only work with the nice upstreams.

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On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 14:38:57 -0800, Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org>

+100 to this. Personally I find that collaboration with others is the
most rewarding aspect of participating in open source in general, and
all the benefits that come from collaboration and having lots of
eyeballs and also many people innovating is what I think binrgs the
overall largest value to all of humanity. If you come across upstreams
that don't want to collaborate, I suggest you move on to work with
others instead.

+1 as well.

To make submitting patches upstream (and rebasing them occasionally if >upstream is slow to merge your submission), I recommend starting the >packaging using the actual upstream git repository and running `git
checkout -b debian/latest` as the first step.

and then adding salsa as remote and push to there?

Greetings
Marc
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402

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