Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
David Witbrodt <dawitbro@sbcglobal.net> writes:I thought 'ia32-apt-get' was removed by accident, and you were merely waiting for a sponsor to get it added back. Was it actually removed intentionally?It appears that way. You can read about it on Bug#535645 and the debian-ctte ML.
Having read bug report 535645, I find myself shaking my head and laughing:1. I assumed -- since 'ia32-apt-get' and 'ia32-libs-tools' and been accepted in the first place -- that more communication had been happening between the relevant teams and maintainers from the beginning. Apparently not.
2. So, 'ia32-libs' gets orphaned because it is a time-consuming, wasteful stopgap measure; it's functionality is picked up by another approach (ia32-libs-tools), which has been in development for over a year with no serious damage to users' systems reported, but the moment a maintainer picks up 'ia32-libs', the 'ia32-libs-tools' package gets removed... also without discussion. If users have already begun to rely on any of the thousands of 32-bit libraries made available that are not available via 'ia32-libs', the users be damned.
What we have here, my dears, is a failure to communicate! If this level of communication is typical for Debian as a project as a whole, then I can't believe the thing even runs at all. And here I am trying to bust my buns (in my free time) to raise my skill level high enough to try the New Maintainer process. *shakes head*
It all reminds me of the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai": Allied prisoners suffering from low morale are ordered to build a bridge; they successfully improve their morale... by building a bridge for the enemy; other allies are sent in to blow the bridge up; in the end, the bridge is blown up, the film's stars are all killed, and the doctor is left on the hillside observing the carnage, saying "Madness... madness!"
I know how that doctor felt.... Dave W.