Re: Proposal for removal of mICQ package
Am Don, 2003-02-13 um 16.14 schrieb Martin Loschwitz:
> Most of you have probably already noticed it, but i am going to describe the
> situation one more time here so it gets stored in an archive somewhere.
>
> As of mICQ 0.4.10.1, the source code includes some bits that prevent mICQ
> from starting up on Debian boxes in specific (if EXTRAVERSION is not set to
> some value at compile time and the username you run the program with is not
> 'madkiss').
>
> In fact, at first users think that mICQ is starting up perfectly normal, but
> after the client got logged in into the server, it prints the following
> message and exits after that:
>
> You're using the mICQ package provided by Debian. Since the Debian maintainer
> is extremely uncooperative, you're adviced to use the better qu ality package
> from micq.org. Simply add the follow ing line to your /etc/apt/sources.list to
> track stable versions of mICQ:
> deb http://www.micq.org/debian stable main
> To track CVS snapshots, add:
> deb http://www.micq.org/debian testing main
> Source packages may be retrieved similarly.
>
> This code can be found in file "src/preferences.c" in mICQ source code,
> starting at line 114.
>
> md5sum of the upstream-tarball that contains this version of preferences.c:
> c0c84ed9b5df0d9ced060a9eed11d36b micq-0.4.10.1.tgz
>
> I have to admit that not setting EXTRAVERSION in debian/rules is a bug, ok,
> but not setting such an un-important variable (it _is_ unimportant after all)
Hmm I think, that if the developer says he needs it, he is proabably
right. Some wishes of a Maintainer should be fulfilled if its possible
and not violating the policy.
> should not lead to a behaviour like the one described above. It looks like the
> only intention behind this code is to achieve an object lesson effect for
> the maintainer, in cleartext, me.
>
> Again, this "easter egg" is debian specific - it will only occur on computers
> running Debian and using the official Debian mICQ package.
Okay this was a very bad way to show the misunderstandings of the
Maintainer and the upstream.
> In my opinion, with this step, mICQ has proven as dishonorable to be distributed
> with Debian anymore (especially since nobody knows what idea upstream will have
> as next, maybe it's a very funny 'rm -rf /'?). Thus, i would like to request
> removal of the package from distribution.
>
> Additionally, I suggest to consider to add this piece of software to the "unable
> to package" list[1].
I don't think that this is neccessary at all. Maybe the maintainer of
the package should change, so that everybody could come down...
Sometimes to people aren't able to work together, then the wisest of
them should get a step back and give another person a chance.
yours sincerly
alex
> --
> Alexander "formorer" Wirt KeyID: BC7D020A
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