Re: from / to /usr/: a summary
* Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [120101 19:12]:
> > If the maintainer refuses patches and only wants to fix brokeness if
> > someone does a full blown upstream fork then this is a maintainer issue.
>
> I think this discussion is getting hopelessly muddled by excessive use of
> sweeping statements like this.
As your mail seems to defend things I did not attack let me rephrase it
to make clear what I do not like about some submissions to this thread.
Let me it as a list of simple statements so people disagreeing with some
part can more easily say which:
1) Debian contributors are volunteers, they are not be forced to do some
work.
2) Packages, especially those not avoidable in a Debian installation,
are no personal property.
3) Having little derivations from upstream is a good thing as it makes
maintainance easier.
4) Debian is about a coherent system that is of use for out users,
packages that do not fit in are broken.
5) Different cases of (4) can have different severities and must be
weighted against other problems and costs and disadvantages.
One such cost is (3), but (3) is no absolute to rule out anything,
only a relative to throw into the scale.
6) (1) means a maintainer can say they will not do something, but they
cannot say a package will not do it (because of (2)). Also it is
no argument to silence discussions about what a package should do.
7) If the only remaining obstacle in (5) is lack of time for the
current maintainer to allow derivation from upstream, then a new
full blown upstream might be one solution. But another solution is
some comaintainer to volunteer to forward-port those changes and
handle the incoming Debian bug reports.
8) Some maintainer might not like (7), and say they will not do that
(because of (6)), but that is no argument for a discussion.
Because that would mean implying the maintainer cannot work with
other people, which for a core package would rather be a reason
to look for a new maintainer...
And to turn down help and discurage volutneers harshly is not better than
demanding volunteers to do a specific work.
Bernhard R. Link
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