I just sent an email to the debian dev list outlining my counter
arguments to Thomas Koch's negative
opinions.

It will take a moment or three, I am sure, for this message to hit the
archives here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/threads.html

> I just sent an email to the debian dev list outlining my counter
> arguments to Thomas Koch's negative
> opinions.
>
> It will take a moment or three, I am sure, for this message to hit the
> archives here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/threads.html

Thanks for following up Ted.  It looks like a pretty good
conversation, even if the initial reaction from one person was a bit
harsh.

--
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net
http://niemeyer.net/blog
http://niemeyer.net/twitter

yes, that was great follow up ted!

thanx for sticking with it.

ben

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Gustavo Niemeyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I just sent an email to the debian dev list outlining my counter
>> arguments to Thomas Koch's negative
>> opinions.
>>
>> It will take a moment or three, I am sure, for this message to hit the
>> archives here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/threads.html
>
> Thanks for following up Ted.  It looks like a pretty good
> conversation, even if the initial reaction from one person was a bit
> harsh.
>
> --
> Gustavo Niemeyer
> http://niemeyer.net
> http://niemeyer.net/blog
> http://niemeyer.net/twitter
>

Thank you Ted for following up on this!

So if we want to keep zookeeper package in debian testing and unstable
branches, we need to do 2 things:

1. Fix bug 626020 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=626020
2. Find somebody who can maintain the debian package.

I have 2 questions:

1. Do we want to support debian package?
2. If so, is anybody interested in maintaining the debian package?

--Michi

On 6/13/11 11:43 AM, "Benjamin Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> yes, that was great follow up ted!
>
> thanx for sticking with it.
>
> ben
>
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Gustavo Niemeyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>>> I just sent an email to the debian dev list outlining my counter
>>> arguments to Thomas Koch's negative
>>> opinions.
>>>
>>> It will take a moment or three, I am sure, for this message to hit the
>>> archives here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/threads.html
>>
>> Thanks for following up Ted.  It looks like a pretty good
>> conversation, even if the initial reaction from one person was a bit
>> harsh.
>>
>> --
>> Gustavo Niemeyer
>> http://niemeyer.net
>> http://niemeyer.net/blog
>> http://niemeyer.net/twitter
>>
>

For those not following the thread on debian-devel, a copy of my mail there:

Hi Ted,

thank you a lot for your email! I really mean that. It would be wonderful to
get more communication going between Apache and Debian. I've learned that
these two large and important free software projects are nevertheless
different in many ways.

I also appreciate very much the nice conversations we had last week. I could
learn a lot from you.

About the ZooKeeper package and partly also Hadoop/HBase which I also
maintain(ed):

a) The first and most important reason for orphaning these packages is, that I
did quit the job where I used them. It's neither possible nor adequate to
maintain a package that you don't use yourself. - So as long as there isn't
anybody else who'd like to maintain these packages, we can stop the discussion
here.

b) I think that there is actually very little interest for
Hadoop/HBase/ZooKeeper packages in Debian. ( There is interest for packages
from Cloudera or Apache for Debian, but that's something else.) Even the
company I worked for switched to use the Cloudera distribution, because they
felt more confident about it. Now there'll be the Bigtop project and people
will rather use the "official" apache releases which are tested by
Yahoo/Facebook/Cloudera then the Debian packages.
So without any discussion about ZooKeepers Code quality, it might just not be
worth to do the packaging work if nobody wants to use it.

[1] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-
general/201106.mbox/<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

c) A Debian stable release with ZooKeeper (/Hadoop/HBase) is not possible
without a long term support commitment from upstream. I don't see, how Debian
could fix bugs in ZooKeeper and test those without upstream helping with
insights and test infrastructure.

d) From what I've heard, read and experienced about the history and culture of
Apache and Debian, quality has different priority in these two projects.
Debian has a "Culture of technical excellence"[2] and is very keen about its
independence from companies. I experienced the Hadoop projects as very company
driven where quality is not nearly as important as in Debian.
Now we have different priorities and standards. I propose we don't enter a
discussion about those as long as points a)-c) aren't resolved.

[2] Stefano Zacchiroli (Debian Project Leader): "Debian: 18 years and
counting" http://conferences.ellak.gr/2011/files/2011/05/debian.pdf

Thomas Koch, http://www.koch.ro

Given that ZK (and the rest of the hadoop ecosystem) will now have
Apache created/maintained debian pkgs how/does that effect things?

Patrick

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 12:41 AM, Thomas Koch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> For those not following the thread on debian-devel, a copy of my mail there:
>
> Hi Ted,
>
> thank you a lot for your email! I really mean that. It would be wonderful to
> get more communication going between Apache and Debian. I've learned that
> these two large and important free software projects are nevertheless
> different in many ways.
>
> I also appreciate very much the nice conversations we had last week. I could
> learn a lot from you.
>
> About the ZooKeeper package and partly also Hadoop/HBase which I also
> maintain(ed):
>
> a) The first and most important reason for orphaning these packages is, that I
> did quit the job where I used them. It's neither possible nor adequate to
> maintain a package that you don't use yourself. - So as long as there isn't
> anybody else who'd like to maintain these packages, we can stop the discussion
> here.
>
> b) I think that there is actually very little interest for
> Hadoop/HBase/ZooKeeper packages in Debian. ( There is interest for packages
> from Cloudera or Apache for Debian, but that's something else.) Even the
> company I worked for switched to use the Cloudera distribution, because they
> felt more confident about it. Now there'll be the Bigtop project and people
> will rather use the "official" apache releases which are tested by
> Yahoo/Facebook/Cloudera then the Debian packages.
> So without any discussion about ZooKeepers Code quality, it might just not be
> worth to do the packaging work if nobody wants to use it.
>
> [1] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-
> general/201106.mbox/<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> c) A Debian stable release with ZooKeeper (/Hadoop/HBase) is not possible
> without a long term support commitment from upstream. I don't see, how Debian
> could fix bugs in ZooKeeper and test those without upstream helping with
> insights and test infrastructure.
>
> d) From what I've heard, read and experienced about the history and culture of
> Apache and Debian, quality has different priority in these two projects.
> Debian has a "Culture of technical excellence"[2] and is very keen about its
> independence from companies. I experienced the Hadoop projects as very company
> driven where quality is not nearly as important as in Debian.
> Now we have different priorities and standards. I propose we don't enter a
> discussion about those as long as points a)-c) aren't resolved.
>
> [2] Stefano Zacchiroli (Debian Project Leader): "Debian: 18 years and
> counting" http://conferences.ellak.gr/2011/files/2011/05/debian.pdf
>
> Thomas Koch, http://www.koch.ro
>

> Given that ZK (and the rest of the hadoop ecosystem) will now have
> Apache created/maintained debian pkgs how/does that effect things?

For us (Ubuntu/Ensemble), not much.  First, we want to have important
software readily available.  Then, ZooKeeper is a dependency of
Ensemble.  For one to be in the distribution, the other must be, so
we'll continue to have packages well maintained.

--
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net
http://niemeyer.net/blog
http://niemeyer.net/twitter

Sounds reasonable to me. Can that be done through Apache (ie do the
work on the Apache deb and use the result in Ubuntu/Ensemble) or it
has to be done directly through debian (or whatever one calls the way
it's currently being done).

Patrick

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Gustavo Niemeyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Given that ZK (and the rest of the hadoop ecosystem) will now have
>> Apache created/maintained debian pkgs how/does that effect things?
>
> For us (Ubuntu/Ensemble), not much.  First, we want to have important
> software readily available.  Then, ZooKeeper is a dependency of
> Ensemble.  For one to be in the distribution, the other must be, so
> we'll continue to have packages well maintained.
>
> --
> Gustavo Niemeyer
> http://niemeyer.net
> http://niemeyer.net/blog
> http://niemeyer.net/twitter
>

> Sounds reasonable to me. Can that be done through Apache (ie do the
> work on the Apache deb and use the result in Ubuntu/Ensemble) or it
> has to be done directly through debian (or whatever one calls the way
> it's currently being done).

We can certainly work in collaboration, but the end package has to be
put in Ubuntu or Debian, which means the policies must be respected.
This means that it's generally easier/more comfortable to work in
close collaboration, pushing changes as they are done, rather than to
provide big changesets occasionally for review.

Note that while Ubuntu does import many packages from Debian
automatically, not all packages are necessarily the same.  ZooKeeper
is one such example.. we've been maintaining our own version that is
more up-to-date than the one in Debian for the needs of Ensemble, and
we'll likely have to diverge in the future.  Even more if it gets
dropped.

--
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net
http://niemeyer.net/blog
http://niemeyer.net/twitter