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"I picked Ubuntu natty (released in April) as a reference, ... and am considering only the “main” repository, supposedly the core of the distribution, actually

by rwl 15y ago

"I picked Ubuntu natty (released in April) as a reference, ... and am considering only the “main” repository, supposedly the core of the distribution, actually packaged by Ubuntu and not repackaged from Debian." I'm not sure I understand Ubuntu's "main," or what's "packaged by Ubuntu and not repackaged from Debian." Does this mean the author is not counting code that appears in both Debian and Ubuntu? Because I would expect a lot of that code to be GNU, and I would expect GNU code to make up a small proportion of the Ubuntu-only code. But that must not be what it means, right? I thought nearly all of Ubuntu's "main" was just repackaged from Debian, in which case the remainder would be a very strange sample to draw on.

bxr 15y ago
The author is mistaken, as you point out there wouldn be nothing to look at (well, effectively nothing) if the code from debain was removed. Also the methodology is a bit suspect. The main non-free and contrib repositories are divided along GPL-compatibility lines, so just looking at main doesn't really paint a full picture.
- pedrocr 15y ago
  You're thinking of Debian. Ubuntu doesn't have non-free or contrib.
pedrocr 15y ago
Pretty much everything that is in Ubuntu is also in Debian. What Ubuntu "main" means is those packages are actually built by Ubuntu with their own patches and quality control. Wheres "universe" has everything that is not in main and is repackaged from debian to Ubuntu by the community without official support. The assumption is that the "main" archive is a fairer representation of the important stuff in the distribution than including "universe" as well. You actually have to manually enable universe on an Ubuntu install to be able to use it. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu for more details
- rwl 15y ago
  "What Ubuntu "main" means is those packages are actually built by Ubuntu with their own patches and quality control." I guess this is where I was confused. My understanding is that the packages in main still originate as .debs from Debian (i.e., they are not directly packaged from upstream sources), even if Ubuntu applies their own patches and such, so it sounds strange to say that these are not "repackaged." (I can't find an Ubuntu page confirming this, but Wikipedia says, "Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch..." [1]) So, I think the mapping from your terminology to mine is: "built by Ubuntu" => "repackaged by Canonical from Debian" "repackaged from Debian" => "repackaged by Ubuntu community from Debian" [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ubuntu_%28operating_system%29 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ubuntu_%28ope...

by rwl 15y ago

bxr 15y ago

The author is mistaken, as you point out there wouldn be nothing to look at (well, effectively nothing) if the code from debain was removed. Also the methodology is a bit suspect. The main non-free and contrib repositories are divided along GPL-compatibility lines, so just looking at main doesn't really paint a full picture.

pedrocr 15y ago
You're thinking of Debian. Ubuntu doesn't have non-free or contrib.

pedrocr 15y ago

Pretty much everything that is in Ubuntu is also in Debian. What Ubuntu "main" means is those packages are actually built by Ubuntu with their own patches and quality control. Wheres "universe" has everything that is not in main and is repackaged from debian to Ubuntu by the community without official support. The assumption is that the "main" archive is a fairer representation of the important stuff in the distribution than including "universe" as well. You actually have to manually enable universe on an Ubuntu install to be able to use it. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu for more details

rwl 15y ago
"What Ubuntu "main" means is those packages are actually built by Ubuntu with their own patches and quality control." I guess this is where I was confused. My understanding is that the packages in main still originate as .debs from Debian (i.e., they are not directly packaged from upstream sources), even if Ubuntu applies their own patches and such, so it sounds strange to say that these are not "repackaged." (I can't find an Ubuntu page confirming this, but Wikipedia says, "Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch..." [1]) So, I think the mapping from your terminology to mine is: "built by Ubuntu" => "repackaged by Canonical from Debian" "repackaged from Debian" => "repackaged by Ubuntu community from Debian" [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ubuntu_%28operating_system%29 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ubuntu_%28ope...