Hi, I'm involved both in Debian and Ubuntu development, and I'm often frustrated by how little I know about the other distributions. After discussing this in a blog post[1], I got the impression that I wasn't alone in that case. So I decided to do something about that, and to go ask the other distributions' developers a few questions. If this works well (answers and interest from other distros), I might do that again, or turn this into something more formal (for example, a mailing list and/or a wiki would seem well suited for that). I'll publish the answers on my blog[2], and, if this proves to raise interest, move them to a wiki. [1] http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=250 [2] http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/ Here is a first set of questions. In your answers, please avoid codenames (act as if the reader didn't know anything about your distribution). Please try to write your answer as a short paragraph, answering all the sub-questions from the questions at once. Q1. Packages How many "pieces of software" do you have in your distribution? Do you distinguish between "source packages" and "binary packages"? (if yes, give numbers for both). Are there subdivisions in the set of packages (by kind of support, by "freeness")? Are all packages supported the same way, or are there different levels of support? (If different levels, how many packages are supported with each level?) Are some packages imported from another distribution, or are most of your packages done from scratch by your developers ? Q2. Your developers What's a "developer" in your distribution? How many developers do you have? How many of these developers were active in 2007? Does a company (which one?) employ a large number of developers? Do you have different "classes" of developers, or does everybody have the same access right to all your packages? How do you integrate new developers? How do you handle contributors who don't have access rights to the archive? (is there some kind of sponsoring system?) Q3. Developers and packages ownership What's the relationship between developers and packages? Does each package have an assigned developer, or can everybody modify all packages without stepping on anyone's toes? Are packages mostly maintained by teams, or by developers working alone? Other questions: - Did I send that mail to the right mailing list? - Which question should I have asked? What should I ask next? - Do you think that this initiative is interesting? - Do you think that this should move to a seperate mailing list? Would you participate in such a mailing list? - Can you suggest a project that could host such a mailing list without annoying anyone? :) - Any other suggestions? Thank you for reading me so far -- and for answering my questions if you did. ;) If you want me to ping you when I'll publish the answers, just drop me a mail. -- | Lucas Nussbaum | lucas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ | | jabber: lucas@xxxxxxxxxxx GPG: 1024D/023B3F4F | -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
