Debian is the 'parent' distro to many 'children' derivative distros, including Ubuntu. Sometimes those derivatives give back to the upstream, but it's not always easy.

A new effort called DEX is aiming to improve how derivative bits are merged upstream.

"DEX is all about action: merging patches, fixing bugs, crunching data, whatever is necessary to get changes from derivatives into Debian proper," Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman wrote in a blog post. "DEX is a joint task force where developers from Debian and its derivatives work together on this common goal."

It's a good idea, but it kinda/sorta sounds familiar to me.

About five years ago, the Debian Common Core Alliance (DCCA) got started as an effort to help encourage collaboration among Debian derivatives. The DCCA failed.

So why does Zimmerman/Ubuntu think that DEX can succeed where the DCCA failed?

[Continue reading this blog post at Netstat -vat by Sean Michael Kerner]