While I agree with most of what you say, I feel that it is important to look at any structural changes to fink that could be done now to take advantage of the upcoming release. If we figure out exactly what has to be root and what doesn't and move in the direction of widening the distinction now, then when we change to panther we can include some of these modifications. Kill two birds with one stone.

I've already started using my user-mode fink mod for my own stuff so I hope to have useful insight when the core developers are willing to listen.

Thanx,
JP



On Sunday, October 12, 2003, at 9:49 am, Benjamin Reed wrote:

Sure, I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the need to do it immediately. I agree it's safer to not do anything as root. I disagree that it's as easy as people are making it sound. If it was, we'd have it already.


When I say "user-mode fink is useful to a very small part of the fink population", what I mean is it's really only desired by people who are both sysadmins and users of fink.

It's not like fink is making you be root for the day-to-day use of fink packages, it's only for installing new software, which for 99% of fink's users, is a fairly rare occasion. I agree it's a nice-to-have, I disagree it's worth rushing into it without thinking about all the ways it affects how the fink packaging process works.

There's only so many times I can say "I don't have anything against it but now isn't the time." If you want to implement it, do it. Don't just make a patch and say "it works for me." Build a lot of packages and see what breaks. Find out *why* it breaks, and find out how to fix that. In a month, when we have a panther bindist and things have slowed a bit, come back and show the code and make your case.

2 weeks before the panther release is not the time to come to us and say "oh, by the way, I think we should make sweeping changes to the way fink builds and installs packages."

=)

--
Benjamin Reed a.k.a. Ranger Rick -- http://ranger.befunk.com/
gpg: 6401 D02A A35F 55E9 D7DD  71C5 52EF A366 D3F6 65FE
"Emacs is a nice operating system, but I prefer UNIX."
  -- Tom Christiansen

<mime-attachment>


----
It's all fun and games 'til someone writes to a NULL pointer!




------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. SourceForge.net hosts over 70,000 Open Source Projects. See the people who have HELPED US provide better services: Click here: http://sourceforge.net/supporters.php _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel

Reply via email to