Re: Possible Partnership

[joey@debian.org (Martin Schulze)]

Moin!

Brian C. White writes:
> There is a company starting (coincidentally here in Ontario) that is
> going to be providing a linux distribution based on Debian and KDE.

Fine.

> What I would propose is a partnership between them and us such that they
> can take over most/all of contrib & non-free and any work they do for
> "free" packages gets sent straight back to us.  Even without this, though,
> the partnership could still be beneficial.

I object.  It would be illogical to give them all of our non-free
packages on the one hand and being very careful to other new
maintainer on the other hand.

If they are going to maintain most of our non-free packages by time (I
mean taking over one after the other, maintaining them, uploading
them, showing that they do a good job &c) I don't see a reason to
object.

IMHO it would be unwise give up all of our non-free packages and
moving them into a company.

> It is not their desire to sell a proprietary system (like Caldera), but
> rather one that includes some software that Debian currently classifies as
> "non-free".

This is fine and should make us happy.  I would like them to maintain
random packages (the ones they need), like normal maintainers.

What I would be very happy about is if they (as a company) could get
licences for some packages so that they could produce and sell a

			  Commercial CD-ROM
		     Containing Debian GNU/Linux
	     Including all non-free and contrib packages


> The advantages to this that I can see are:
>  - Higher profile for both groups
>  - True (paid) support for a Debian distribution for those who want it
>  - Better support for contrib/non-free packages
>  - Debian becomes "free software only"

But Debian/GNU Linux is more than the buzz/rex/bo/woody part.  There
are many important packages that are located in non-free.  A Linux
Distribution without them would pain for many people.

> I don't really see any disadvantages to this other than Debian would have
> some responsibilities to its partner, but I don't think this is necessarily
> a bad thing.

  o We would lose control of all non-free packages, important members of
    the Debian project work on and with them.
  o We might lose important packages
  o We would trust a company that we don't know (compared with an
    unknown maintainer...)
  o Debian GNU/Linux would depend on that company

>          * I gather the main Debian site is currently hosted by iConnect,
>            and I'm a little worried that our involvement may offend them.
>            (ie. They generate revenue by selling Debian CD-ROMs, which will
>            also be a large part of our business). I'd just like to be sure
>            that we're not stepping on their toes, since they have provided
>            a great service to the Linux community.

Why don't you simply install a Debian mirror, produce and sell those
CD-ROMs, too?

I wonder why there should be a special partnership between Debian and
this company.

I strongly object that Debian should depend on a company in that way.
It is one thing to outsource our resources (dns, ftp, master, lists
&c) or let some packages be maintained by different people but it's a
completely different thing to give another company control over a
whole part of the distribution.

>          * Our company's main software product will be a Debian 
>            distribution (with a couple of extra bells and whistles, including
>            support). If things go well with the rest of the Debian board, then
>            we'd probably move to a 2-CD set (one for core Debian, and one for
>            the non-free stuff that we host --- Except that I suspect core 
>            Debian no longer fits on a single CD, but you get the idea).

Uh uh, this would imply that there will be two Debian GNU/Linux
distributions.  (If we should ever split there would be three [or
four...]). I strongly object.

But again: I would be very happy if you could sell Debian CDs for
commercial purposes containing non-free packages, too.

>          * Our company will be open for business around the end of May. 
>            Our ftp server will be in place by that time (barring acts of god).

So it's a new company?  Just my confusive mind, but if the company
should go bankrupt after one hear, we would have another 88 orphaned
packages? Ohhhhhhhhhhh

>          * In addition to selling/supporting a Linux distribution, we're
>            planning on offering network consulting services to other 
>            firms. That end of the business is fairly high-end, in the sense
>            that we will be trying to compete with Caldera, Novel, Microsoft,
>            etc. 

Ouh, nice plan though...

Joostje wrote:
> I'm not completely sure why they would want to single out "non-free".
> Why not just make seperate releases for packages where the company
> thinks they can make a better package (or faster bugfix or whatever)
> than the current debian release?

That's what I mean.  This company IMHO should support Debian like
every other developer by maintaining some packages - if they maintain
all non-free packages at the end of the year, it's okay...

Brian answered:
> They could provide a "better package", as you say, and would do so if
> they felt it necessary, but it would be duplicated effort and nobody
> want that.

Just a question from me: Why can't they simply contact the maintainer
to let him include the particular patch or take over this particular
package?  This is the case with most of the packages, why should this
particular company be handled in a very different manner?

Err, I just saw that you want non-free to not reside on master?  This
would imply that no simple user that installs Debian GNU/Linux via ftp
(or receiving a self burned from any maintainer).  If that's the case,
Debian would lose many users, there would be no pine, no xsnow, no
msql, no xarchie, no a2ps, no chimera, no majordomo, no xv &c.  We
could close the project because we could hardly persuade somebody to
install a system where important parts would be missing.

Again: I would appreciate further help, but it should find its way
back to the Debian project.  Subtracting Debian of these parts would
be a very bad idea.

I second Bruce answer in <m0wCUxY-00Idf6C@golem.pixar.com>.

Brian said:
> They would get the prestige and recognition of being a "Debian Partner"
> and we would point our users to them if they wanted more than is provided
> within Debian proper.

Isn't it enough to say "We are Debian Maintainer", "We maintain
packages for Debian/GNU Linux" and you'll get perfect support here? I
object against a "special partnership" in the case you described.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
  / Martin Schulze  *  Debian Linux Maintainer  *  joey@debian.org/
 / http://www.debian.org/              http://home.pages.de/~joey/