3.1.4. Coordination with upstream developers

A big part of your job as Debian maintainer will be to stay in contact with the upstream developers. Debian users will sometimes report bugs that are not specific to Debian to our bug tracking system. These bug reports should be forwarded to the upstream developers so that they can be fixed in a future upstream release. Usually it is best if you can do this, but alternatively, you may ask the bug submitter to do it.

While it’s not your job to fix non-Debian specific bugs, you may freely do so if you’re able. When you make such fixes, be sure to pass them on to the upstream maintainers as well. Debian users and developers will sometimes submit patches to fix upstream bugs — you should evaluate and forward these patches upstream.

In cases where a bug report is forwarded upstream, it may be helpful to remember that the bts-link service can help with synchronizing states between the upstream bug tracker and the Debian one.

If you need to modify the upstream sources in order to build a policy compliant package, then you should propose a nice fix to the upstream developers which can be included there, so that you won’t have to modify the sources of the next upstream version. Whatever changes you need, always try not to fork from the upstream sources.

If you find that the upstream developers are or become hostile towards Debian or the free software community, you may want to re-consider the need to include the software in Debian. Sometimes the social cost to the Debian community is not worth the benefits the software may bring.