For the record, their are a lot of developers who agree absolutely with the sentiments you express here, and suggest you try to become an official DD rather than accepting the inconvenience of working always through a sponsor.
Britton Kerin __ GNU GPL: "The Source will be with you... always." On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Thomas Viehmann wrote: > Hi Chad. > > I did not answer to your first post for various reasons. > While I thank you for your answers, I strongly disagree > with some of your views to the point that I wondered why > it was my package that prompted you to write about "pet-packages". > > Just as your advice was not only to me, please take these comments as > something that I'd like to say not only about your comments, but also > as an observation of the general way of discussion. > > Taking your answer literally, the conclusion is that you think that debian > has enough package maintainers and the others should bother about the crums > that fall from the table that existing DDs are not interested in. > As for the discussion "package something only you are interested in", I > believe to have explicitly demonstrated why my package is worth including. > In fact, take a look at Bug #174481, which prompted me to package libchipcard > and also take on libopenhbci (the latter of which now James Treacy packaged > due to a wishlist bug but obviously doesn't use it himself). > In short, libchipcard does provide a value to debian, as it adds a unique > functionality, and, I believe, is needed top make the gnucash-hbci package > worthwhile as most banks offering HBCI tend to offer it via chipcard-based > methods. (Which I cannot blame you for not knowing, though.) > I've thought about packaging quite a few things before, but now I think I've > found something truely worthwhile. > > Also, I'd like to address the call for "writing manpages for other packages" > and caring about wnpp packages: > Why would you expect anyone to write the manpages the package maintainer > doesn't bother about? True, there are those maintainers that don't have the > time because they're doing very much for the project, but for the most part, > I cannot help but think that they just don't care. I did write two manpages > for my own package because that is the lintian warning that's still left, but > you should well know that a volunteer project needs to distribute the dull > jobs amongst those that are working for the main cause. > Being told "do something but just don't have packages" is just like asking the > local LUG (or whatever) whether you can help out at an expo booth and getting > "well, as long as you just don't come to the booth during the show but just > the vacuuming afterwards" as an answer. > With wnpp matters are even worse, because for the most part, they are just > "ugly, pointless packages noone in the world would care about". (There are > notable exceptions every once in a while, but mostly this is the exact reason > they're abandoned in the first place.) > > In addition, "helping out maintainers" is something that strongly depends on > the willingness of maintainers to accept help. In my experience, the quality > of the packages is strongly correlated (maybe even causal, not coincidental) > to the willingness of maintainers to accept help and user comments and their > friendlyness to answer questions. Let's face it, the main cause of problems in > debian are the problems of and with the present developers and do not relate > very well to future developers. > > Again. I've not answered directly because I personally don't have any issue > with this, if I don't find a sponsor and I just keep using my packages myself, > it's just the same work for me. If you like to give out funny advice, please > do so, people are doing everywhere on the net. But don't expect anyone to join > debian just to do the odd jobs and wanting to be "a slave to Debian". And > don't think that telling people "the contribution you want to offer is not > needed, please do the stuff we don't like" is a successful way of getting > anywhere. > > Again, please don't take offence, I don't mind your answer in itself, I just > want to point out some issues with the impression that potential volunteers > get when considering to apply for debian membership. > > Cheers > > Thomas > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
