Re: Let's CENSOR it! (was: Uploaded anarchism 7.5-1 (source all) to master)
On Thu, 25 Mar 1999, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 25, 1999 at 02:52:37PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > I don't feel that way. Both situations are harmless, both are ugly,
> > > and both require user's intervention. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
> > > I don't see how can some fonts (that haven't even changed IIRC) do
> > > anything bad.
> >
> > The old font packages in the system are not bad as such, but dselect
> > shows them as being "obsolete".
> >
> > A clueless user may think that he does no longer need this package and
> > remove it, and then he/she would lose the functionality provided by it.
> >
> > This will never happen if we force the upgrade, as dselect itself would do
> > if the renaming had not happened.
>
> I didn't see this reason mentioned in your last two flamewars with
> Branden Robinson? Although the situation could seem to point anyone
> to remove the 'obsolete' packages - we aren't really responsible for
> what *clueless* user does, without consulting the documentation.
We are certainly not responsible for *everything* a clueless user may do,
but if we do not care at all about clueless users, then Debian will never
be for newbies.
I think we should try to make a distribution for everybody, not only for
geeks who have a lot of time to read a lot of documents.
> BTW some other packages have relationships with xfonts-* packages,
> so dselect would prompt for their installation anyhow. A clueless
> user would follow dselect's suggestions and recommendations.
Only if you have those packages installed.
If you don't have those packages installed (which depend on the xfonts-
packages, for example), the font packages are not upgraded.
> > Following your reasoning, if "a font package does not do anything bad",
> > then an empty package should not do anything bad either.
>
> No, but situations are not significantly different. Then this just
> comes to what the maintainer wishes to do. I suggest that you talk
> to him once again.
I suggest that someone else do it. I already tried without success.
> > I wanted to create them, because I think they are useful, but I was
> > "censored". You see, even an *empty* package may be "offensive" and
> > "rejected" because we "dislike" it ;-)
>
> Although this does seem unfair to you, I haven't noticed more support
> to your idea than to his, in discussions about it.
Branden "challenged" me to show a way in which the old font packages
make harm.
I don't think the "harm" should be the only criteria, but also what people
usually want, and I think that people usually want to upgrade everything,
like dselect does by default.
In turn, I have yet to see a *technical* (not *aesthetical*) reason why
the dummy packages may not be created.
Thanks.
--
"1216ccc143a925983fd102cf95ea8e30" (a truly random sig)
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