Disclaimer: please note, English is not my mother tongue. If in doubt
about my words, please give me a chance to clarify before you shoot.
>>>>> On Mon, 26 Jun 2000 19:09:02 -0500 (CDT), Autarch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, Kurt D. Starsinic wrote:
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a council of wise elders who give advice on
>> module naming, when they feel that their wisdom is applicable. A more
>> accurate version of the above quote might be:
>>
>> `Generally, a lack of response can be taken as an indication
>> that there is nothing blatantly stupid about your proposal.'
> Well, maybe what I'd prefer is a positive response saying, "Yes, you can
> have namespace Foo."
That's impossible due to a lack of resources. We are not a funded
institution.
> I know there is a reluctance to give out top level
> namespaces (for very good reasons). When I send a message discussing two
> of them at once (Exception & StackTrace) and I get no response, I don't
> really interpret that as a go-ahead to just upload
That's sensible and good for the community. I wish everybody would see
it as you do.
> and then expect to get
> listed on the modules list (which is important to me as I want the things
> I upload to be visible or otherwise why bother uploading).
>> Some of us appreciate some imagined level of privacy. What benefit
>> will you achieve from knowing each member's name and email address?
> Actually I wasn't suggesting email addresses, just names. Seeing as how I
> know something about a lot of the people from the list from seeing their
> involvement in other fora (p5p, other perl lists, etc.) I'm just curious
> who they are. And keeping it unavailable seems to serve little
> purpose. I could figure it out by browsing a few months worth of archives
> but again, why should I have to bother? Yes, I know you'll refer me to
> your <IMHO></IMHO> block below.
http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/modules/2000-04/msg00271.html
>> > 2. What do those people's responsibilities consist of (particularly of
>> > interest if different people do different things)?
>>
>> Their responsibility is to listen when they have time, and to consider
>> the future of CPAN before they speak.
> I was more curious if any effort had been made to divide the
> responsibilities at all in terms of giving certain people responsibility
> for certain pieces of the overall namespace.
Tk, Apache, and XML have their own module lists that are maintained
separately and discussed on the respective mailing lists.
>> There is very little law on PAUSE. To quote 04pause.html, `Please, talk
>> to [EMAIL PROTECTED] before you decide upon the namespace'. Note the use of
>> `please' and the absence of `must'. Certain top-level namespaces (e.g.,
>> Sun::, DBI::) are controlled by force of law, and are documented as such.
>> Otherwise, you are simply requested to play nicely with others.
> Yes, but I want to get listed in the main list, as I said before, so I can
> actually get my code out there. Therefore I need the cooperation of this
> list.
Yes and no. Yes, it would be nice if this list would be available with
good advice on a 24/7 basis. No, you do not really need us, you really
need cooperation with fellow hackers and you need to get an approved
status in the long run (not immediately).
>> I certainly want to support your efforts and the efforts of others to
>> contribute to CPAN, but I don't see how you've been kept from contributing.
>> I find CPAN (specifically PAUSE) to be unbelievably open, and fairly well
>> documented. Your legitimate complaints seem to be based in not finding,
>> reading, understanding, and/or trusting the documentation. Do you think
>> there's a documentation problem, an access problem, or another sort of
>> problem?
> I think its a documentation problem then. Specifically, I think there
> needs to be a significantly better mechanism for registering namespaces
> (top-level or otherwise). Maybe a registration list that we could check
> after sending messages to this list. For example, I consider myself to
> own the Log::Dispatch::* namespace but do I really own this?
IANAL
> By own I
> mean I should have final say over whether a Log::Dispatch::Foo module can
> be individually listed on the modules page.
You are not going to go to the small claims court with us, are you?
We've tried in the past to find wordings for what we believe the legal
basis of our doing is, but when we have reached the day at which we
need to write it down facing the judge's eye, we will need to let
lawyers find the proper wording and this process will be difficult
enough.
Informally we deal with it such that you do not own the namespace and
do not have the final say. We'll seek your advice on everything
related to "your" namespace, but other interests may need to be
balanced against yours and we will try to never be rude and always be
Salomonic. Sometimes this doesn't work out and then we do not sleep
well (or not at all), but more often it workes somehow, magically.
> Basically what I want is this sequence or something similar:
> - I send a request for namespace Foo::Bar to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Good. Not only for us but also for others who visit the archives of
this list.
> - Maybe I get a response saying 'No, you dunderhead, you can't have it.
> But how about Foo::Bar::Baz?' to which I either reply 'No, I really want
> it and here's why?' or 'Ok'. If we don't agree I eventually get a
> response saying 'Give up, sucka. You'll never get it.'
See above.
> - ... Or I get a response saying 'It's yours. Upload to your heart's
> content.'
But you're free to do so anyway.
> - ... Or I get no response but I check the 'Namespace owner page' and see
> my name listed next to Foo::Bar.
The list is CPAN/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
% zgrep DROLSKY 02packages.details.txt.gz
Class::Exceptions 0.5 D/DR/DROLSKY/Class-Exceptions-0.5.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch 1.2 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Email 1.011 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Email::MailSend 1.009 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Email::MailSendmail 1.010 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Email::MIMELite 1.009 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::File 1.009 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Handle 1.009 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Output 1.011 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Screen 1.009 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
Log::Dispatch::Syslog 1.010 D/DR/DROLSKY/Log-Dispatch-1.2.tar.gz
StackTrace 0.51 D/DR/DROLSKY/StackTrace-0.51.tar.gz
Thesaurus 0.12 D/DR/DROLSKY/Thesaurus-0.15.tar.gz
> That doesn't seem too much to ask and would address all my
> frustrations. Basically, the 'lack of response is assent' really isn't
> good enough because:
> 1. Nobody really notices that sentence.
Are you sure?
> 2. Nobody really takes it seriously.
Are you sure?
> 3. They shouldn't take it seriously because it really isn't true!
You're right:-) Yes, we could add something like, "but don't take our
words seriously because they really aren't true!", but wouldn't people
be upset then? There's no way out. We are an institution and we are
not an institution at the same time. If you know what I mean.
>> <IMHO>I am happy to be outspoken and say that I don't want to make
>> things _too_ easy. There's a certain level of commitment that's required
>> to participate effectively in CPAN, and I think that's a good thing, because
>> what we need most is committed and well-informed participants.</IMHO>
> Uh, what's the point? You want the process to be annoying for what
> purpose?
I'm pretty sure, it will always be annoying to somebody and you cannot
streamline out the annoyingness. All you can try is to minimize the
annoyingness. What I read in Kurt's words is that by making it easier
for clueless newbies, we'll have some trade-offs.
> So I can show you how 'tough' I am by reading the archives?
> What do you lose by providing a read-only feed to people?
You have write access to the list. If we add the comfortable
read-per-mail access, we have nothing but an ordinary mailing list.
But we want a place to *work*. This is publically accessible, as to
make our decision making process visible to the community. But if we
start using it as an ordinary mailinglist, we will have to go
elsewhere to get our work done.
>> That being said, [EMAIL PROTECTED] isn't a discussion forum; it is
>> requested that the substantial discussion take place elsewhere first.
> Maybe what's really needed is a [EMAIL PROTECTED] (or @elsewhere)
> list.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] exists. All of us (I believe) are subscribed
there.
> Newgroups just don't seem practical for this purpose (too much
> noise on unmoderated groups) but maybe that's just my general dislike of
> newgroups.
>> I hope that I haven't been discouraging in my tone, unless you're
>> easily discouraged, in which case I hope that I was extremely
>> discouraging. :^)
> Hehe. As you may have noticed, I already have some stuff on CPAN so its
> not like I've given up or plan to anytime soon. I just want to help
> streamline a process which at this point in time seems a bit too ad
> hoc. I know a lot of Perl is ad hoc but in this one area, where there is
> a fairly firm control (of namespaces) a little more process would be
> beneficial.
"Me too" (no sarcasm). I'd really like to see things progress. Your
thoughts are very welcome.
--
andreas
