deity@lists.debian.org and deity-digest@lists.debian.org
[since I've never really introduced myself to this list, but only send a few
short messages, I'll do so now - the introduction will slowly change to the
maintopic of this message]
My name is Admar Schoonen and I am a 21 years old student electrotechnology at
Eindhoven, University of Technology, The Netherlands. I'm a Debian GNU/Linux
user since december 1999 and I use it on my laptop and on the computers at
home. I'm trying to do as much of my study on Debian, instead of Windows.
Since I only have a 56kbit/s dailup-line (pay per minute) to update the
computers at home and since I can update my laptop at 10Mbit/s for free at
university, I was looking for a way to build a tiny Debian mirror on my laptop,
carry it home, and update the computers from my laptop. I've tried several
(combinations of) programs, but none did what I had in mind (although apt-move
came close). Therefore, I've written my own program (demish), it's available
from
deb ftp://donald-duck.ele.tue.nl/debian testing main
>From it's description:
demish builds a mirror, containing only those packages (and optionally their
dependencies) that the maintainer wants, and thus gives him (almost) full
control over the size of the mirror. It is useful if you have a fast internet
connection at work/school and a laptop or a cdwriter: just make a mirror on the
laptop or cd, and update your computers at home
The current (stable) version (0.2.3) is working ok (I guess), since I haven't
had any bugreports (not that I think that I have many users though ;-)
Currently, I'm working on 0.3.0, which should have more features and at least be
an order of magnitude faster.
Since demish depends heavily on dpkg and apt, I want to be notified of
(important) changes to those programs (changes which could possibly break
demish) and it would be nice if I could post my questions/troubles with those
programs somewhere and receive some help. Therefore, I am subscribed to
debian-dpkg@l.d.o. I also would like to be subscribed to deity@l.d.o (deity is
an other name of APT, AFAIK), however, I'm not allowed to be subscribed to that
list since I'm not a deity developer. That's why I've subscribed myself to
deity-digest@l.d.o since March, 3rd this year - little information is better
than none, ain't it?
I've posted a few questions about apt on deity@l.d.o since March this year
(posting is allowed, reading not - reaction should be posted on deity-digest or
to the poster directly, I believe). I've only once received an anwer though
(the answer was mailed to me directly, perhaps the answers to the other
questions are in the deity-digest now, I haven't fully read it - see below why).
The deity-digest-list has been quiet since March (perhaps even longer), upon
today, August, 14th. Today, I've received the complete (15.5MB large)
deity@l.d.o archive since 5 Feb 1999 on deity-digest@l.d.o. It are 286
messages which are about 50K each (each message is a compilation of messages)
(well actually, the number of messages is slightly less than 286, since I've
received some messages twice because I've interrupted fetchmail to see what was
going on). It took me about 40 minutes to get my e-mail over a 56Kbit/s line.
That wasn't fun.
Although outsiders aren't allowed to read deity@l.d.o directly, the complete
e-mail archive of that list appears to be available on the web (see l.d.o)
(haven't checked much into it though). Because of this weird situation, and
because I've received 2.5 years of deity-discussions today, I'm writing this
message.
Now, could somebody please tell me:
* why deity@l.d.o cannot be read directly (ie, subscribed to) by
non-deity-developers?
* why posting on deity@l.d.o is/appears to be allowed, although subscription
is prohibided?
* why the complete archive of deity@l.d.o is availble via http on l.d.o,
although deity@l.d.o cannot be read (ie, subscribed to) directly?
* why deity-digest is silent for about 6 months (or longer?) and then spawns
about 280 messages, total size of about 15MB containing the (full?) archive of
deity@l.d.o?
* who would be interested in deity-digest@l.d.o if it sends e-mail only once or
twice per year (or perhaps even less frequent) and if it is then working in
'batch-mode', sending 15MB of e-mail to everybody who is subscribed?
* could this situation be improved, so that I (and probably other
non-deity-developers) can be informed sooner and in an other way of what is
going to happen to future releases of apt? (ie, not having to wait 6 months
or longer and not receiving a 15MB mail-archive of the past 2.5 years)
Thanks.
Admar Schoonen
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