Re: suggestion: webmin should be added again to debian
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 10:20:48PM +0100, Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
> webmin and usermin were taken off the repository for more than 2 years ago. As
> they are both still under heavy development and IMO they are great tools, I
> think, they should get a chance, to be return to debian.
>
> The reason, the ftp-master argued, was "bad spaghetti-code". But I think, this
> is not fair. As long as an application is not breaking the debian rules, and
> as long as it is working fine, and as long as a tool is useful (and I think,
> they are VERY useful, especially for unexprienced and new users) why then
> pretend it from the repository? Especially unexprienced users will find this
> tool usefull and make their introduction to debian much more easier.
Well webmin's code is spaghetti, but I don't think that was the reason
for removal. The debian packaging scripts for webmin were even worse
spaghetti than webmin itself and completely unmaintainable. I doubt
anyone was interested in taking it over.
Webmin is of course also in the unfortunate position that anyone capable
of packaging it almost certainly has no interest at all in using it.
Maintaining a package you have no interest in using often doesn't work
very well, especially if it is hard to maintain (and wemin really is
hard to maintain because of the mess it contains).
I have worked with Webmin's code for about 5 years now (we have used it
as the web interface on the router we sell, so we have made many changes
and extensions to make it do what we needed and not do some things we
certainly didn't want it to do), and I would certainly not volunteer to
maintain the package. Webmin is a better web management interface than
no web interface, but that's about all I will give it.
> So I think, you should give it a new chance, especially as there are also 64-
> bit-packages available.
Webmin is perl code. What does 64bit have to do with anything?
--
Len Sorensen
Reply to: