On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 8:12 AM, KatolaZ <katolaz@???> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 04:01:58PM +0000, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

>> is it the intent of the devuan team to:
>>
>> (a) create a "fork" which will always, at all times, without fail,
>> require that a debian repo be placed in /etc/apt/sources.list
>>
>> or
>>
>> (b) create a "fork" of the *entire debian package repository*, such
>> that it will end up over time to be as completely incompatible with
>> debian as ubuntu is today.

> Luke, I don't know what Devuan will be in 5 years, I don't even know
> if it will still exist by then, and I think nobody can assure you that
> the transition to and from Devuan from and to anything else will be
> smooth and easy and straightforward and painless.

well, here's what _can_ assure that the transition will be at least
not complete hell and requiring a total abandonment of devuan for
debian and vice-versa (i.e. a total and complete wipe-down of a hard
drive and a reinstall from scratch):

you - the devuan team - can choose option (a) above (a fork that
always simply replaces key packages and nothing else) instead of
option (b) above (a fork that is equivalent to ubuntu and is
*intended* to become completely incompatible with debian).

> Before a few months ago I had never thought that I could ever been
> forced to leave Debian after about 15 years of using and loving it.

likewise.

> I
> hope that eventually we will see a happy ending to this story, but I
> don't have good feelings about that. I am concretely scared that the
> whole Debian project might crumble, piece by piece, under the axe of
> "progress" and "usability", and with it most of its derivatives and
> companions.

well, that's why i feel that it should be obvious that it is the
responsibility and duty of the devuan team to implement option (a) as
a means to replace key strategic packages with ones that you feel will
ensure that debian may be made stable through the simple process of
adding a single line to /etc/apt/sources.list and issuing an upgrade
command.

> For me it's either having a (possibly Debian-like) functioning and
> fuss-free GNU/Linux, which I can tinker with as like and I have done
> so far, or going somewhere else, e.g. to FreeBSD.

that's an option i'm giving serious consideration to.

l.