At 17:03 Uhr -0400 19.05.2002, Mark Rahner wrote: >Max, you've become rather emotional over absolutely nothing. I >think it's clouding your judgement.
Uhm... yes? Thanks that you tell me, I wasn't aware I was emotional about this :-) OK maybe a bit annoyed, since it seems we are completly missing each others point. [...] >>>Evolution is *not* usable now because it's not buildable. It depends >>>on ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/source/evolution/evolution-1.0.3.tar.gz >>>which doesn't exist anymore. The current version is 1.0.5. This is >>>an example of the Fink-external *source* dependencies I was talking >>>about. I'll let you know how evolution is after I can build it. ;-) >> >>If you had told me, I could have done something about this. But in >>any case, mirroring every source is not an option currently. And in >>most cases isn't necessary. A pity that they throw away old >>sources, unlike most other package publishers. > >I told you clearly and I told you that it happened twice on my first package. Oops, I missed that then, sorry. I saw you had problems getting the source, but was not aware that that was because it was replaced with a new version. > Remember the db problem from a week or so ago? Maybe evolution >isn't a typical package, but two strikes on the first package is >horrible. Sure it's bad if a package is broken, fully agreed! Since several people complained about evo for this reason, I finally removed it from the tree now, to be readded once it's fixed & tested. To repeat what I said earlier, though: I never believed it to be proper for release, but many people bugged me who wanted it, so I released, and after all, our unstable tree is for testing. It's hard ot find these problems if you never make a release of the package. > I'm pointing it out so that you can improve Fink. If you don't >want to improve Fink, don't, but don't shoot the messenger either. Well, sure. But I find it a bit confusin that you make the evolution package a central aspect of your email; to me it is not central, it's only one example of several. Anyway if you have *specific* problems with a package, either submit a bug report via our bug tracker, or contact the author directly in an email. > My opinion is protected by truth. Uh, "truth", be carefuly with that word... But I assume you meant it in the sense of "facts" here or so. > External source dependencies are hurting Fink. Evolution is not >usable at all right now. Python wasn't usable for some of last >week. It will happen again unless something changes. Yes, it will happen again and again for the time being. The alternative for us is to mirror all sources, for every single package, in every single version we ever released it. Not even Debian is doing that, and they still have 18 GB of data or so I was told by somebody. Yeah, I do see the problem of course. But I disagree with your suggested solution for the time being (even though you claim it to be "true" :-). I do agree (and we have an FR on that) that Fink should have the ability to automatically retrieve sources from say http://fink.sf.net/bindist/source if they are not available from the specified location, that would fix any missing source problems for the stable tree at least. Mirroring the sources for all our stable releases is definitly doable (and is actually done). Just as a reminder, we are very different from Debian in some aspects. Fink is mainly about building packages from source. Debian is mainly about distrbuting packages as binaries. They just don't have to mirror all sources of all versions, since the sources are not that important. It's not necessary to keep all versions of a binary package either (this is not necessary for us either, luckily). >>>You have a substantial binary distribution under stable today. I assumed >>>that it could be supported with the same tool set. Perhaps I'm wrong. >> >>Yes you are wrong. > >Frequently. And I'm not alone I see. Just to clarify this (so that emotions don't cloud your view either :-) - this was not a personal remark. You said "I assumed that it could be supported with the same tool set". This was a wrong assumption, you wanted to know whether it is wrong, hence I told you. Point. That's all, really, no hidden meaning. [...] >>Well Fink asks you these interactive questsions at the beginning of >>the build. Don't see a fundamental difference there. > >There's a huge difference. If a user were asked all of the >alternative questions up front and they were stored in a datafile, >then a user could build 50 packages non-interactively. When builds >take days, being able to build without human intervention is very >useful. If you don't want to implement this, don't, but don't >belittle someone who makes resonable observations just because they >aren't willing to do the work. Good ideas are needed too. Uhm, how did I belittle you? I only said that I don't see a fundemental difference. That contains no judgement at all, nor does it imply your idea is bad, it only means what it literally says - *I* didn't see it. I didn't claim it as a fact :-) But to reply to what you wrote: I still don't quite see your point (and that again doesn't mean that I think you are stupid/wrong/whatever, just that I don't see what you mean and would like you to explain to me better - I can only use good ideas if I understand them, right?): In Fink, right now one can do this: fink install bundle-gnome tetex-macosx ... foo bar... package50 And then press return. It will build all of the specified packages. If additional dependencies for these have to be fulfilled, then it will ask you to resolve these before starting building. Once you did this, Fink will proceed to build all selected packages. No further interacive input needed. So, based on this, how would this be improved by what you suggested? BTW, I do agree the build process is not perfect, because if the build of one package fails, Fink will not continue to build any of the other packages, even if it could (i.e. the failed package was no dependency). This is a thing that should be improved (not a trivial task though). [...] >Well, I'm sorry to hear that Apple is not cooperating with you. Neither can't I sadly. Apple did for example sponsor two machines for SourceForge (they *paid* SF to host them actually). They are also seemingly trying everything to show they are supporting open source. But that doesn't change that currently they seem to ignore us. > I can't imagine why. Your website implies a friendlier relationship. You are refering to the FAQ I guess. Well, it's true that they told this to Christoph last year, and gave him an early copy (well... not that much early, but better than nothing) of 10.1 5G64. That's the last we heard of them :-) I am also not sure who exactly Christoph had contact with, and how "official" this was. Guess we should rewrite that FAQ entry, it's not reflecting reality anymore. [...] >I never said it was work. You're arguing with me for no reason. >I'm not volunteering to help you develop Fink, but that doesn't make >me worthy of derision. You don't know what I do. There are many >noble, time-consuming pursuits that don't involve developing open >source software. None of this invalidates my ideas, of course. I am sorry if you feel offended, but that was not my intention, nor do I think what I said was particulary offending. But let me say in different words what I meant: Of course the input of users like you and others is extremly valuable and helps to find a lot of bugs. But it is not sufficient. But OK, let's forget that for a sec. What remains is that a binary distro for unstable at this point would lead to more work (rewriting the tool chain for it), more work (building & releasing the unstable binaries), more work (handling many many more complaints & bug reports - more because many will be duplicates. I don't think we will actually find that much more bugs, only that we will hear about the same bugs more often); more work (ignoring all the flames we get for bugs - that's not that easy, if you spent a lot of your time on this stuff, hearing insults added on top isn't that easy to shrug off). On the long run, though it would pay off, I am certain. But on the short & middle run, it will first add much more work. Thus, I still believe an unstable binary distro would be nice, but my reasons are different from yours, and the importance I assign to it is different from yours, too. Right now, I think that making an unstable distro would be a mistake, since too many things are in flux right now, and too many things are missing in the infrastructure for it. Also, not enough resources are available to cope with the strain this would put on the Fink team. Once these things have changed, we'll tackle it. That was always the goal, BTW. >Debian did not start big. They grew due to the strength of their >ideas and their leadership. Yup. And they didn't grow in one day, or even one year, either. > >>> o Make Fink-local copies of all source packages that Fink requires. >>> o Fix the dependency problem in the evolution package. >> >>Dude that's stupid, there will always be single packages with a >>problem, evolution is in no way special (maybe *you* think it's a >>very important package, but for one person you tell me that thinks >>the same I can tell you ten that doN#t think so). > >I'm beginning to see a pattern here. First I'm being "vague" and >now I'm being "stupid". In reality, I've been neither. You >obviously have a problem accepting constructive criticism and that's >a shame. I don't think you are stupid, and didn't want to imply though, sorry for my poor choice of words here. I fully accept & take the criticism that the evolution package is buggy. I admited so in my first post, and in the past in various email threads I lead on two mailings lists, and in private with half a dozen people (if you like I can forward them all to you). But I don't see why you keep insisting on this particular package, hence I got annoyed (no excuse, just trying to explain how it was). BTW, if you like I can also compile a list of all the buggy packages I ever wrote or put into CVS, etc., it's probably quite long. I know my weaknesses and know that I make mistakes (and sometimes extremly stupid errors) like anybody else. I am happy if people give me constructive criticism. But I don't like if they keep poking it into my eye and twisting the stick 8-) >Max, I'll still thank you for all of the work you've done. I still >appreciate it. I just don't appreciate your attitude. Sorry to hear that, although I think you are not really aware of what my attitude is - in my experience, email is a bad medium for controverse discussions, since you can't really see/hear/"feel" the emotions of the others in the dicussion, leading to serious misunderstandings. Be careful in how you judge me only based on what you *believe* I think or want to "imply" :-). Cheers, Max -- ----------------------------------------------- Max Horn Software Developer email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> phone: (+49) 6151-494890 _______________________________________________________________ Hundreds of nodes, one monster rendering program. Now that's a super model! 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