Re: Packages still depending on GTK+ 1.2
On Tue, Dec 09, 2008 at 02:08:48PM +0100, Morten Kjeldgaard <mok@bioxray.au.dk> wrote:
> Dear Neil & Gunner,
>
> Thank you for your long, detailed and convincing postings in this
> thread. I really appreciate it! The argument that finally made me
> surrender was that time is perhaps better spent helping upstream authors
> make the conversion. So I guess we're on the same page now. And I'd be
> crazy not to listen to a couple of heavy-weight experienced DDs :-)
>
> Having said that, understand this: scientists are the most conservative
> programmers on the planet. As someone interested in bringing as many
> science programs into the distribution as possible, I think others in
> the science-teams agree that dealing with upstream can be an uphill battle!
>
> Things like copyright is almost never in order, the tarballs contain all
> kinds of strange files that require repackaging, man pages are almost
> never there, and the documentation is often scarce (of course there is
> often an associated article in a scientific journal). Upstream authors
> are always very positive, but there often a long waiting time for delivery.
>
> On top of this, asking a scientist for updating the software for a new
> version of a toolkit will come as an extra burden. Scientists will see
> this as endless quest for your own shadow. When they've finally gotten
> around to updating their software to GTK+ 2 (say), version 3 will have
> long replaced it.
>
> But perhaps that is the harsh reality of life for us in the science teams.
You can replace science and scientists with almost anything in your
text, it still applies. Scientific applications are not very different
from a very lot of other applications in Debian.
Mike
Reply to: