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Re: Why is help so hard to find?



On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 10:11:51AM -0800, Mike Bird wrote:
> On Fri January 14 2011 03:51:48 Alexander Reichle-Schmehl wrote:
> > Am 13.01.2011 11:54, schrieb Olaf van der Spek:
> > > Instead of stepping down, it might be better to ask for a co-maintainer.
> >
> > You mean like this http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested?
> > Let's have a look:
> >
> > # chromium-browser [..] requested 228 days ago.
> > # dpkg [..] requested 2245 days ago.
> > # grub2 [..] requested 2439 days ago.
> > # libreoffice [..] requested 1368 days ago.
> >
> > Any other good ideas?  Perhaps something new ideas, which isn't already
> > practices?
> 
> On occasion when I've found a kernel bug or gcc bug or perl
> bug, or wanted to add a new feature to inn, I've been able
> to scratch my itch immediately.
> 
> The impression I get of Debian is that in order to contribute
> I need to spend a year or so humoring somebody with a tenth my
> programming experience.
 
Debian maintainers are not necessarily master programmers, but they
will generally have more experience of packaging and bug triage than
you.  These are very different skills.

> If that impression is wrong, I'd really like to fix at least
> two major bugs in Squeeze:
> 
> (1) sysv-rc upgrade should not bring in insserv and wreck
> startup on systems more complicated than a basic laptops,

This is an exaggeration.

> without adequate warning, and "irreversibly".  (Note that due
> to ass-backward design, restoring /etc does not prevent insserv
> from wreaking havoc again.  You have to also
> "touch /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering".)

So, a *critical* priority debconf question is not enough control
for you?

> (2) KDE4 is not an upgrade from KDE3.  It is despicable to
> push KDE4 onto KDE3 users.  The correct upgrade path is
> Trinity.
[...]

Strange, I can't find your ITP for Trinity.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
                                                              - Albert Camus


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