Re: Two theses regarding packages
On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Joey Hess wrote:
> Frankly, I would prefer that Debian developers consist soly of people
> whose "itch" is making Debian be of the highest possibile quality.
That'd be nice. But people also have a life besides Debian.
> Someone who creates a Debian package to satisfy a personal need, and is
> then done, their itch scratched, should *not* upload it to Debian. By
> placing a package in Debian, you *must* make a committment to maintain
> it. Uploading an effectively pre-orphaned package is, in my opinion, an
> act of extreme ill-will toward the Debian project. No-one makes Debian
> better by doing that.
OK, that would be the other extreme, which wouldn't be good either. But
consider that nobody is *forced* to use a package. The fact of packaging
some programm is already useful to plenty of people, who can either just
use it or build on top of that - if they want.
Check out mailsync, one of my packages. Should I drop it? It's got a RC
bug against it. It is usable with older c-client libraries but *not* with the
current. I suspect it's a bug in c-client but I don't have the time (right
now?) to fix it.
For my part I prefer to employ any software when it serves my needs even
if it's not my package and even if I know it's got a RC bug against it.
There'd be a *lot* of packages I'd be unable to use if the deathpenalty
for them would consider of an unresolved RC bug.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the "scratch my itch and
forget" attitude.
*t
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Pospisek
SourcePole - Linux & Open Source Solutions
http://sourcepole.ch
Elestastrasse 18, 7310 Bad Ragaz, Switzerland
Tel: +41 (81) 330 77 11
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: