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Amicalement, Camille TROILLARD - Design and Development @ 404found! http://www.404found.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17, rue de Douai 75009 Paris +------- Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your sign -------+ ----- Original Message ----- From: Per Abrahamsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,gnu.emacs.gnus Sent: Thursday, July 01, 1999 7:03 PM Subject: Free software: Packagers vs Developers > [ FUT: gnu.misc.discuss ] > > The specific issue is that Debian is distributing an alpha version of > Gnus as the default Gnus for XEmacs on their unstable branch. > > There are two problems with this: > > 1. Alpha releases aren't intended for anyone but developers, and those > users determined enough to subscribe to the developers list, and > download and install it themselves. > > While most projects have adopted a policy which makes it easy to join > as an alpha tester, this should _not_ be thought of as a permission > for outsiders to package and distribute the software more widely. All > that will accomplish is to make developers more wary of making alpha > releases, and maybe go back to a more closed development model. > > 2. Gnus is a part of both Emacs and XEmacs, and has been tested to > work together with the other Emacs Lisp packages bundled with each > Emacs or XEmacs release. By replacing one part of XEmacs with > another, they are distributing something different from what the > XEmacs team released. This means that it hasn't been tested by the > XEmacs team to work together, and worse, bug reports reaching the > XEmacs team no longer correspond to something they have released. > > Both problems are generic, people packaging and distributing alpha > software, and people packaging and distributing their own "improved" > versions of free software. All the major Linux distributions does it, > perhaps to gain a competitive advantage, but Debian seems to be worse > than the rest. Perhaps because they have so many package maintainers > (500+), each of whom feel the need to make a difference. > > The responses we got on the gnus group from the packagers was: > > a) It is legal, so you have no right to complain. > b) _We_ test the code, so _we_ know when it is ready. > c) Our users demands it. > > None of which really helps solve the problem. > > I know that we developers have to live with _some_ changes being made > in order for the software to work together in a distribution, but it > would be nice if some ethical guidelines among packagers could be > developed to supplement the current Debian rules, like: > > 1) _Never_ distribute alpha releases. > 2) _Never_ distribute improved versions. > 3) _Never_ distribute with different "user preference" options > than the default. > 4) Keep bug fixes and interoperability changes to an absolute minimum. > > While this may make the individual distribution "worse" on the short > term, having the code released by the developers being as close as > possible to the code used by the users should improve the quality of > the feedback from users to developers, and improve the quality of the > code for everybody on a slightly longer term. > > On the long term, I could see developers themselves create packages > for the hypothetical dominating platform (say LSB) using the > hypothetical dominating package format. With the right software and > the right standards, it would just be another Makefile target. > Distributors would then collect the already made packages, and we > would avoid the middlemen in most cases.
