Re: Nitpicking: you are doing it wrong
On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 6:55 AM, Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org> wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, in my opinion (some of) these things are "good". But
> making a big fuss about them is not helping anybody. It only distracts
> attention from things that are important, and creates false impression that
> they are somehow crucial for high quality packages. I can assure, they are
> not.
I appreciate your comments, and I believe the above sentence is the
take away message Jakub wanted to get across. While nit-pickiness is
not crucial for high quality packages, Debian has a culture of high
technical quality to the point where we acheive near 100% bug free
releases. This culture goes all the way to nit-picky packaging details
at package creation. By the time you ask for sponsorship, the package
is probably already in good shape. The mentors list is about have a
couple extra pairs of eyeballs to go through and find those small
things. It's like buying a house: yes there is a difference between a
cracked foundation and a drippy faucet, but a home inspector wouldn't
be doing their job if they didn't report the leaky faucet. (I, and
many other sponsors, would consider the nitpicks you mentioned to be
akin to a leaky faucet and not just a bad coat of paint since fixing
them would make a more technically complete package.)
Cheers,
Scott
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