Re: FVWM 2.2 officially released
Julian Gilbey wrote:
> FVWM 2.2 has just been released officially, so that FVWM 1.x is no
> longer supported or maintained.
You mean by the upstream maintainers? In any case, this leaves it free
for someone else to adopt if they want to. Free software doesn't die,
it just fades away, replaced by something newer on most systems, but
often lingering in hacked up and still *very* useful versions on odd
systems here and there.
> But when I do, I have an interesting problem: how to do the
> conversion. There is a script available for converting .fvwmrc files
> to .fvwm2rc files
An ugly, frightening, and IMO extremely dangerous script. One that may
well fail miserably if it doesn't have write access to the home
directories of users on remote NFS/NIS-linked systems.
> and I can remove the fvwm package from ftp.debian.org.
NO!!! Orphan it if you must, but leave the option open for someone else
to pick it up and support it if they want to. Maybe someone from Debian
will become the new upstream maintainer as well as the Debian
maintainer.
I know it's hard for some developers to believe, but not everyone wants
to live life on the cutting edge. Some are even extremely conservative,
and want to stick with something that they know works, and that they're
comfortable with hacking.
Let me just ask something here: fvwm1 is smaller than fvwm2, yes? That
alone is a reason why some people might prefer fvwm1, even with no
upstream support.
> But how can I ensure that people know to use the fvwm2 package?
It's not a problem. Don't. You can suggest it, but don't try to cram
it down people's throats. Orphan it, and if it *really* is time for it
to die, then no one will adopt it, and eventually it'll get dropped.
> (1) Have fvwm become an empty package (priority extra) which Depends:
> fvwm2. OK.
This is a HORRIBLE solution! You're forcing people that don't WANT to
switch to switch.
> (3) Use some nice, new Replaced-by: feature or similar. If it
> exists.
Did I miss (2)? In any case, whatever you do, it shouldn't force
anybody to upgrade unless and until they want to do so.
How would you feel if the emacs maintainer decided that vi was now
obsolete, and it was time to force everyone to "upgrade" to emacs? I
realize it's not a perfect analogy, but to people who still prefer fvwm1
(few as they may be), it's probably a good one. Just because the
current upstream maintainers no longer want to bother with fvwm1, that
does NOT mean that the users are ready to abandon it.
--
Chris Waters xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
or xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr | this .signature file.
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