On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 01:15:16AM +0200, Aaron Isotton wrote: > > I care. I suspect everyone who has to download the Packages.gz for sid on > > a slow link probably has a vested interest in removing the stupid and all > > but totally unused crap people throw in the archive, not adding more to > > it. > > I appreciate the variety. I'd be much more interested in a better > compression algorithm (bz2, for example) than in a censored content. It's not about censorship (why the hell do people always insist on making any objection to a package an argument about censorship anyway?) bzip2 was packaged because someone thought it would be a useful thing to have in Debian. And it is, lots of people use it. We're not trying to keep useful things out of the distribution. However, I'm not convinced this thing is actually useful for any real purpose. > > We have some really silly things in the archive, and that's fine as long > > as they actually have a real use. But I don't go packaging every little > > applet and script I write, because most of it is useful to six people, > > some of it closer to about a dozen. > > Please define "real use". Use your brain! That's what you've got it for. I'm asking for people to apply a little common sense. I realize this is a lot to ask from people, especially in this project, but it's the only way to prevent more and more useless crap from filling the archives, making Debian CDs cost more, and slowing down the release process while people try to fix silly bugs in packages that nobody uses, rather than worrying about the not so silly bugs in packages people do use. > > When packaging a thing, a developer should be asking what this package > > will add to Debian and who will benefit. If the answers are "not much" > > and "nobody really", do we really need to further bloat the Packages list, > > the archive space, the mirrors' disk requirements, etc, with it? I say > > probably not. > > "Only do what's popular" has lead to Windows. I prefer Debian the way > it is. Again, you're dodging the issue. If the software is only useful to a small handful of people, then those people should have the software. If it's useful outside that small group, it probably fits well in Debian. However, it's not our job to serve as the central repository for every single coder's joke program, CS homework assignment, porn collection, or anything else that someone, somewhere wants - even if they are the only person in the world who does. If you cannot apply common sense to the question "should we have this package?", then I can't help you. -- Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@bluecherry.net> You're entitled to my opinion <rcw> dark: caldera? <Knghtbrd> rcw - that's not a distribution, it's a curse <rcw> Knghtbrd: it's a cursed distribution
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