Re: Bug#150551: ITP: wmcoincoin -- Stupid dockapp for browsing DaCode sites news and board
On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 06:32:16PM -0000, Moshe Zadka wrote:
> The point isn't, as so many people think, not adjusting sources.list. The
> point is integration. Having the BTS. Having the sid->testing buffer.
> Having, in short, the advantages of "being in Debian".
Sorry to AOL here, but yes, this is something I firmly believe in and so it
is a point worth backing up.
I explain to people who ask me about why "deb is better" than the
alternatives, that aside from any technical advantages the packaging system
may have, the biggest advantage is Debian's development model (or as I often
put it "the social advantage"). Anyone can join Debian, provided they meet
our requirements (which shouldn't be too hard[1]). Anyone can contribute
packages so long as they are willing to put the energy into it and they make
the package conform to Debian policy. And those packages which do make it in
are kept in good shape because of this policy, or else they end up being
dropped from the next release. The end results for the user are that they
don't have to promiscuously download from other sites, which is an unsafe
practice, and they always have an official Debian maintainer on the hook[2]
to ensure the package stays in good shape. With lesser distributions,
official developers are a closed group (you can contribute packages if
you're not an official developer, but their quality may be questionable, as
they are not given the same scrutiny as official packages) and thus a lot of
unofficial repositories for packages spring up. The needs of the users are
not well met by such an arrangement.
So where I'm going with this is even the smallest, least significant or
"marginal" piece of software should be allowed in Debian so long as it meets
the approval of the developers, and such approval should not be influenced
by whether or not the developers personally would use it, or even by an
estimate of the number of potential users. As long as *someone* out there
can use it, and some developer is willing to put the effort into packaging
it, barring some other truly valid reason for excluding it (like license
problems, or intractible packaging/policy problems) it should go in. Keeping
it out means the would-be user needs to settle for either lesser quality
packaging from an untrusted source, or not have the software at all.
This is close to my heart because of my work on the Debian Jr. project.
Some of the software we include might be seen as "frivolous", used by only a
fraction of the subset of users of Debian who are children, and therefore
not worth packaging. But if including it makes one user other than myself
happy, I'll do it so long as I still have the energy to maintain it.
Ben
[1] Yes, I know historically the NM process hasn't always been easy, but I
still have faith in it, having helped a few people through it myself, with
positive results.
[2] OK, there are MIA developers to contend with sometimes. But we do have
ways of dealing with them even if they aren't perfect yet.
--
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Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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