UbuntuContributions
Ubuntu Contributions
Many Ubuntu developers are also prolific free software developers and contribute to other projects, notably to Debian.
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System boot
Canonical employee Scott James Remnant developed from scratch Upstart, a modern event-based init daemon. Upstart is now default init system for Ubuntu, Fedora and Frugalware Linux.
- initramfs-tools was originally written by Jeff Bailey for Ubuntu, and later became Debian's default initramfs system.
Package management
The dpkg Breaks field was implemented by Ian Jackson for Ubuntu.
dpkg triggers were implemented by Ian Jackson for Ubuntu.
- Ubuntu developed a simplified front-end to apt called gnome-app-install .
- Ubuntu developed a system to notify users about package updates (update-manager, update-notifier).
- Ubuntu is heavily involved in the development of apt, python-apt and synaptic.
- A application to view and install deb packages called gdebi was developed by Ubuntu.
Installation
Ubuntu developers have made a number of important contributions to debian-installer:
- debootstrap progress via debconf, and a good deal of what became the first-stage task installer glue
- base-installer kernel selection refactoring and test suite
- much of udev support and devfs path removal
- pcmciautils support
- chunks of debconf maintenance effort such as the progresscancel and escape capabilities
- reserved username checks
- some of rescue mode
- translation handling work in cdebconf that saved about 20MB of run-time memory
In addition, we developed a custom graphical installer, Ubiquity, which uses debian-installer for many of its back-end tasks.
Jockey
Third party driver installation UI: https://launchpad.net/jockey
Crash interception
Apport intercepts signal and Python crashes, package installation failures, and potentially other problems, creates debug reports, sends them to a bug tracker, and has tools for post-mortem recombination of core dumps and debug symbols. It was ported to Fedora by Will Woods a while ago.
Brainstorm / IdeaTorrent
The engine that powers http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com is open and is being modified to be more project-neutral. http://ideatorrent.org/
LTSP5
https://launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPQuickInstall
Ubuntu was the first distro implementing the ltsp upstream MueKow specification of the next generation LTSP in 2005/6 (more detailed history).
The implementation is including some improvements like:
- Dropping the insecure XDMCP model that allowed you to even take screenshots from a networked X stream
- New sound implementation based on alsa
- A new way of handling local block devices as well
- New printserver to replace the unlicensed lp_server shipped with former ltsp versions
- Deep integration with the GNOME Desktop
- An LTSP specific display manager called LDM which simply acts like a graphical ssh client
- Multiple appserver support out of the box
- Deep integration with the debian installer and the Ubuntu alternate CD for a comfortable out of the box install for LTSP servers
- Deep integration with the Ubuntu hardware autodetection mechanisms dropping the need for configuration of thin clients in most cases
- Automatic swapping over the net if ram on a client is low
- Dropping the need for nfsroot resulting in massive client speedup through a unionfs/aufs mount on top of an nbd blockdevice that uses squashfs
Debian joined the development after 6 months supplying large contributions
Fedora recently picked up the Ubuntu code as well with the Fedora 9 release
Gentoo is working on an LTSP5 implementation based on this code as well.
OpenSuSE uses the existing LTSP5 code to implement a similar setup wrapped into their kiwi liveCD build scripts.
The upstream development which was led by ubuntu for 2.5 years was switched to a completely new model of cross distro team effort in October 2007; each participating distro has an upstream development contact in the ltsp-upstream team through which they can directly submit code to the launchpad bzr trees.
OpenSSH
OpenSSL
OpenVPN
Cert blacklist generation and packaging, mitigating the OpenSSL RNG vulnerability
Xorg
- Fixes and quirks for variety of issues in -intel, -ati, other drivers, and the X server.
- Participated with Fedora (and later Mandrake) in the early development of the Xrandr-1.2 gnome-display-properties capplet (subsequently taken upstream), contributing significant QA and stability bug fixes, and a revert dialog.
- X-Kit, a python library for parsing/modifying xorg.conf files. Used in EnvyNG and elsewhere through Ubuntu.
KDE
System Settings, the KControl replacement, was maintained and pushed into KDE 4 by Kubuntu developers.
printer-applet, part of KDE 4.1, was written by Jonathan Riddell
guidance-power-manager, part of KDE extragear, was written by Kubuntu developers.
Bazaar
Canonical sponsors development of Bazaar, a distributed revision control system used by many projects. Also, Bazaar is now a GNU project. http://bazaar-vcs.org/
Gnome
Canonical employs/employed some Gnome developers: Jeff Waugh (employed in 2004-2006), ...
Patches
During package maintenance and bug triaging we develop countless fixes and send them to upstream. (e. g. the ones we submit to Debian, see also http://patches.ubuntu.com ).
Servers/Bandwidth
http://svn.gnome.org/ and http://l10n.gnome.org/ are hosted by Canonical. Launchpad provides hosting to many projects including Inkscape and Miro.
UFW
Ubuntu developed ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall), a frontend to iptables: https://launchpad.net/ufw
Netbook User Interface
Canonical has developed a new UI for netbooks (mini laptops), licensed under GPL3. https://launchpad.net/netbook-remix
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