Re: Bug#632450: ITP: pmatch -- Duplicate finder and removal tool.
On Sun, 2011-07-03 at 13:02 +0200, Thomas Koch wrote:
> Ok, I didn't see that this ITP already had a discussion. However there are
> three minor and subjective issues that I have with this ITP:
>
> - It's not really in the spirit of Open Source of Free Software to start a new
> project, if there already are a douzen projects in the same area. If none of
> them fits your needs perfectly there should be at least one that could be
> extended to your needs instead of starting from scratch.
Many tools (perhaps most FLOSS) start off as toy projects, with the
author not expecting to go far with them. And then they get to the point
where they actually start being useful, even being better than existing
ones. In such a case, you don't really want it thrown away or kept
private right? Imagine that there isn't much motivation (e.g. wrong
language, ugly code, not enough time, too boring) to port back the
features to the older tool.
> - It's always better if somebody else beside the upstream author who also
> wants a package to be in Debian. In that case there's proof that the package
> is at least important for a second person.
What of cases where the package would get wider usage simply for being
available in Debian? I'm not saying all trash should be accepted, I'm
just saying that if, for example, one's own project is their first real
exposure to technical Debian work, why not have them start with what
they want the most for now... package their project for Debian?
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