On Sat, Jan 29, 2000 at 09:33:54AM -0500, Michael Stone wrote: > On Sat, Jan 29, 2000 at 03:23:27PM +1100, Brian May wrote: > > >>>>> "Manoj" == Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > Manoj> a) If the maintainer does not know what every binary in the > > common > > Manoj> PATH is doing, he should give the package to someone who is > > Manoj> willing to spend the time to learn the package. > > Manoj> b) If the binary is an internal binary, it should not be in PATH, > > Manoj> but in /usr/lib/<pkg> > > > > I disagree. Take Heimdal for instance. It is a very complicated > > package (at least by my standards), has numerous libraries and > > clients. Most of the binaries are obvious, eg telnet, ftp, and even > > come with man pages. However, some don't, eg, des, verify_krb5_conf, > > string2key. > > I disagree with your disagreement. If you don't know what the binaries > do, how is the user supposed to know? It's your job to do the research > so every user doesn't have to do it on his own. I agre with manoj that > maintainers should not be packaging things they don't understand--that > just has all sorts of bad implications.
Manoj, Michael, I can see where you are coming from, and it makes a good deal of sense -- but part of me thinks it is folly to require *that* level of understanding before packaging a program, and expect it after being packaged. Some programs are just complex -- not many people can claim to know what every file in the linux kernel can do. Not many people can claim to know sendmail/qmail/exim/smail/postfix inside and out. X? Ouch. (If you, the gentle reader, do know s/q/e/m/p or X inside and out, perhaps then a nice feeling of smugness is called for. :) While I agree that maintainers should know more about their packages than the average end user, to expect them to know it as well as the upstream authors just doesn't seem realistic. In the end, the maintainers of packages are end users, people that used a package often enough that they desire to maintain it, for the good of the project. Maintainers aren't employed by anyone to know something inside and out, so they must spend their time earning a living. I think this must be understood. Perhaps what we should be after, is having maintainers that know their packages well enough to track down user's questions in a reasonable amount of time. Isn't that what we are really after? Who cares if the maintainer knew the answer before or after the question was asked, as long as the answer comes back in a reasonable amount of time? Our large community model just doesn't allow for maintainers to spend all day working on their programs -- to expect otherwise would alienate many. ObDisclaimer: Of course, all this is IMHO, IANADD(Y), YMMV. :) -- Seth Arnold | http://www.willamette.edu/~sarnold/ Hate spam? See http://maps.vix.com/rbl/ for help Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me spread!
