Re: mICQ roundup
On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 01:22:26PM -0500, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>
> This wasn't simply a message. It crippled the package for innocent _users_
> of the package, who had nothing to do with the argument between the upstream
> maintainer and Debian maintainer.
Users have everything to do with packaging quality. As a debian micq
*user* I appreciated the message and installed the packages directly
from upstream (trivial).
I did not consider it as a disservice from the upstream author's part
and it did not make me feel paranoid about future code written by that
person. I would be more worried about some catastrophic mistake by a non
programmer debian packager. Actually because of the message I noticed
that the package from the official repository had replaced the unofficial
package that I explicitly installed.
The unofficial package is not even susceptible to licensing problems,
which often seems to be the case with unofficial packages.
Also I don't think that Debian's reputation had anything to fear, it
was just a funny incident. It would not be funny if it was a DOS on a
critical service that was triggered by an innocent upgrade on a stable
server, but that is not what happened.
Sometimes people go on strike (DoS) to make their point, that does not
make people never trust their services again! Unless it was a doctor
who went on strike in the middle of a heart surgery... which is not the
same thing.
--
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
-- C. P. Snow
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