On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 01:58:46PM +0200, Johannes Winkelmann wrote: quotations reordered too
[...] since in the end all we all want is a good linux distribution, right?
Sometimes I have the opposite feeling from your side.
Seems, CRUX's usability suffers sometimes from features unimplemented because of lack of direct interest from main developers. Well, CRUX is developed by this group of people, and in the end, they get to decide what's going in and what's not, because they will have to maintain it. This is how most (if not all?) volunteer projects work.
If an idea is well thought out, fixes a general problem and doesn't simply trade in one problem for another, we're certainly willing to discuss it (well, speaking for myself only). However, we only want to change things for the right reasons, not for the sake of change or because $OTHERDISTRO does it that way. Often, omitting features is a design decision, not something we "don't have yet".
Firstly, in case of mirrors, you have to admit: 1. Many crux users have the problem when downloading sources, it is endless discussion on irc. It's endless blaming of sorceforge, gnu.org, and other unstable sites. Many users, especially who are using CRUX in LANs, demand it. It makes life much better. 2. Solutions *exist*. If you are agree on these two clauses, then you have no excuse to not fixing it. Secondly, as for distfiles-like solutions: software must support distfiles-mirrors in first place, and then and only then, there will be own crux mirrors available. If software have no mirrors support, there will never be any mirrors for it. Thirdly, I don't see nothing wrong when using mirrors of other distrubutions, until they are public and don't state nothing against using it in their MOTD.
That said, the presentation of an idea matters a lot, and unfortunately we've been feeling a lot of "us against them" kind of mentality on the mailing lists (yours kinda goes in the same direction, although you probably had only good intentions) and non-constructive complaining, which is rather frustrating for us the (volunteer) developers. At least in my case, this is probably the main reason for the lack of interest in certain people's work; "show no respect, get none in return" holds true in our community just like everywhere else.
Please, don't forget that not only you are the volunteer, we all are. Don't push on that, please. That paragraph is kind of demagogy. If I disagree with somebody, that does not mean that I do not respect him, or I hate him. And conversely, I'm doubt about that if somebody pretending a pussy cat then he are respecting you.
Counter examples show that things can work well when presented properly: Mark's udev patch which was merged within ~2 weeks, or your networking suggestions which were added to the change list for the next release, and ports for it are already being tested.
This is because you had direct interest. I'm still using static dev, thus personally I can't appreciate that.
I am sure, you've seen the last message in "[crux-devel] CRUX sources" thread. We can find a few more reasons and re-invent a few more patches (algorithms)... However, if a concept has been discussed before, and dismissed as inadequately or better kept as an optional feature, repeating it over and over on crux-devel@ and crux@ without reacting to the concerns usually doesn't help and plainly annoys the developers. You can't talk a feature in, trying to do that usually has the opposite effect.
Speaking of me, I have not heard final decision on mirrors patch. All I heard is silent.
(This is pretty much what happened in the "CRUX sources" thread you mentioned)
Hope, 'Better team organization' will improve the feature requests/patches submission mechanisms. Independently from the any reorganization, any respected member of the community making modest requests will certainly get a fair discussion about his ideas, especially if he's willing to cooperate; it's been this way in the past, and will be in the future. In exchange, we reserve the right to disagree, and not include a feature if we think it doesn't fit or may as well be optional.
You are reserve the right to disagree (of course!), but you have not reserved your right to be wrong. That is pity.
Regards, Johannes -- Johannes Winkelmann mailto:jw@smts.ch Zurich, Switzerland http://jw.smts.ch
And please, notice that I'm not talking about your personality: how good or bad person you are. I'm expecting the same or nothing, please. -- Anton (irc: bd2)