Re: [gnu.misc.discuss,gnu.emacs.gnus] Free software: Packagers vs Developers
>>>>> "Per" == Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
Per> Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <gaia@iki.fi> writes:
Antti> I have a distinct feeling that you have an attitude
Antti> problem.
Per> I _do_ have a problem with the attitude of some Debian
Per> packagers, but I try not to let it become the focus of the
Per> discussion. It is the Debian process which is the real
Per> problem.
Antti> From your writings I gather that the swearing is of the
Antti> nature "Damn those Debian developer go and mangle my code
Antti> *again*!".
Per> It more goes like, "Someone writes that someone else had a
Per> problem when using Emacs for Japanese text, and that this
Per> patch fixed the problem. What the fuck (that's the swearing
Per> part) am I supposed to do with that!"
Antti> I know many software developers who prefer well-done
Antti> patches to the best feature requests or the best bug
Antti> reports.
Per> Really? Alone, not as an attachment to a well done bug
Per> report or a well argued feature request?
Per> A report like: "Someone else who used a code not entirely
Per> different from yours had a problem, and this solved it." is a
Per> _lot_ less useful than "I tried to do this with your code,
Per> and got that result, while expecting this result."
Ok, so your complaint is that someone perhaps might use the forward
menu to quickly pass the buck, without really investigating, testing
the patch, and then submitting it to your incoming patch queue in
useable form with a proper ChangeLog entry and all that?
(and then ten minutes later discover an error and have resend the
report with a take-two patchlette)
Sometimes it might be that the maintainer just plain doesn't know how
to make a "general solution" patch that will work on everything from
earaches through hockey pux to empty windows. Linux might be all
they know anything about, and only at a learner level at that.
We can all for sure read email. I need to go get some work done.
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