I think you guys are missing an important point. While contrib apps are
unsupported, there is at least some assurance of quality. It's hard to
get access (almost too hard), your work is closely watched (by people
and by rpmlint), and other people can easily 'overtake' your package if
it sucks.
The club however, is almost uncontrolled. There is no rpmlint checking,
almost anyone can get write access (by submitting one good rpm), and
it's very hard to 'fix' someone else's package, as they retain the
control over it by web interface. Also club has looser guidelines on
licensing, and compilation. The only restriction is that your package
must have a source and a binary rpm. And even at that, the source rpm
can just be a wrapper for a binary (yanc).
So while I agree that work done on the club should do more to help
contribs, I don't think that club packages should be 'forced' into
contribs, and I don't think that club volunteers should have any special
access to contribs.
That's not to say that they should remain separate, but I don't have a
better solution right now. My main concern is to keep the quality of
contribs packages at their current high level.
Austin
--
Austin Acton Hon.B.Sc.
Synthetic Organic Chemist, Teaching Assistant
Department of Chemistry, York University, Toronto
MandrakeClub Volunteer (www.mandrakeclub.com)
homepage: www.groundstate.ca
