Re: what debian-np *should* do

> > making packages that are versioned identically to the official debian
> > packages seems like a really bad idea- it can become very difficult to
> > install some non-ubuntu package, since ubuntu only supports a sub-set of
> > debian packages...
> 
> I'm not sure what other versioning scheme you would expect them to use.
> Anyone maintaining packages outside of the Debian archive is going to
> have to deal with the possibility of incompatibilites between their
> packages and the Debian packages; Ubuntu is just being up front about
> this fact.

what i've read regarding backported packages suggests altering the
version of the package name, so that it's clear where the package came
from.  for example:

foo might be versioned as 1.9.3-3 in official debian, and ubuntu's
modified version might be version 1.9.3-3.ubuntu.0 or something like
that.

it's not flawless(foo 1.9.3-3.1 might update and override
ubuntu-specific stuff), but at least you can tell what's what.

might be a pain if they have to do that with *lots* of packages.  i
don't have any idea how many they're building on their own.  but it
makes it much easier to actually determine what is ubuntu and what is
official debian, and easier to maintain compatibility.

> > i would like for debian-np to be fully debian-compatible, and that
> > doesn't seem to be a commitment for ubuntu.
> 
> Indeed, Ubuntu's goal seems to be maximal compatibilty with Debian, but
> not necessarily full compatibility.  For full compatibility, it's clear
> that debian-np will need to draw its packages directly from the Debian
> archive.

exactly.  and make it clear by versioning when you're deviating from that.

maybe debian-np won't be fully compatible, but i don't want debian-np to
be something that it's considered unwise to mix and match debian-np and
official Debian packages...

live well,
  vagrant

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