Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 9:36 AM Eddie Chapman <ed...@ehuk.net> wrote: > >> in Gentoo. Have any of these 4 maintainers publicly said (anywhere) >> that they are not interested in being maintainers anymore (which is fine >> if that is the case)? We're not talking here about a lone maintainer of >> some peripheral package that's disappeared leaving an orphaned package. > > It isn't like somebody is censoring the lists or waging commit wars on > the metadata.xml/mask file. If somebody was eager to maintain it I'm sure > they'd have spoken up. > >> I'm an outsider to Gentoo development (just a heavy user for over a >> decade both personally and professionally) so I might have missed >> something. I just find it puzzling. > > I'm not puzzled by what is going on, or by your email, because it > happens basically anytime a high-profile package is treecleaned. Yes, > Gentoo is about choice, but somebody has to actually do work to make > the choices viable. There are always more people interested in using > software than maintaining it. The frustration is completely > understandable, but also kinda unavoidable.
It starts to bother me that so many people straight away assume that when someone questions things it's because they are a frustrated user who just wants everyone else to do the work for them. And the same old argument keeps being repeated over and over again *as if they think that no one gets it* apart from us devs. I've been a free & oss software user for over 20 years and I find it very patronising whenever it happens. The reality is that are very few people in this community that don't understand the fundamentals of free software, that no one is being paid, no one is obligated, we are all volunteers, well then why don't you do it, etc, etc. I've never asked or expected anyone to actually step up and do the work and if you read my messages you will see that I've never even implied it. > Repo QA standards don't mean that it has to barely work for your > specific use case. The package has to deal with compatibility issues with > stuff you don't use as well, which is why maintaining a system package can > be hard work. It is usually less of an issue for more ordinary > applications, which tend to have fewer interactions. If it is "good > enough" for you as it is, then just move it to a private overlay and keep > using it. You probably would need to override a virtual or two as well. > Or publish your work somewhere others can use > it. I see, so again I just don't get it do I? I'm just a user who is in their own little world and all they care about is what works for them, and I don't think or understand anything about the bigger picture. > -- > Rich
