A hard day in the life of a Fedora Contributor
שָׁלוֹם
My email:
Dear [nickname]
your project [projectname] looks like very interesting. I installed it on my
pc and i like it.
I want to create a rpm-package for the GNU/Linux-Distribution Fedora [1], but
your package comes with some unmodified libs which are standard in every
distribution and build against them. The Fedora Guidelines [2] says that
it’s not allowed to use internal dependencies if they are in Fedora [3]. I
have to patch them out on every release. To make it easier you could use the
system-libs to compile it. It works, i tested it on F10 and F11 and add the
patch for your buildsystem as attachment. It would be very nice, if you adopt
this to your project.Kind regards
Simon[1] http://fedoraproject.org/
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#No_inclusion_of_pre-built_binaries_or_libraries
His/her answer:
Dear Simon,
I don’t give a fuck. Fedora isn’t mainstream and Fedora isn’t important (and it
never will be) and Fedora-Guidelines are Nazi-like.
It’s in Ubuntu and Debian so you can adopt it or leave it out. It’s not my
problem, it’s yours.[nickname]
I haven’t answered yet.
So long and thanks for all the fish :-)
שִׁמְעוֹן
17. Mai 2009 um 14:17
Debian has similar policies so you might want to see how they work around it.
Please contact the Debian maintainer of the package to help you put pressure on upstream.
17. Mai 2009 um 14:17
That’s kind of amusing actually. Anyway, rise about it, don’t be put off, and package it for Fedora!
17. Mai 2009 um 14:30
Attitudes like that are why it will never be the year of the Linux desktop.
17. Mai 2009 um 14:58
“Fedora-Guidelines are Nazi-like. It’s in Ubuntu and Debian…”
Aside from the hilarity of proclaiming that Fedora’s packaging guidelines are the moral equivalent of the totalitarian state responsible for the Holocaust (I mean, how do you take someone that can say that with a straight face seriously?) there’s the awesome irony of proclaiming Rawhide as too strict in comparison with Debian :-). I’ve built packages for both, and Debian is vastly more anal retentive than anything related to RedHat currently dreams of being (to it’s credit, IMO, but that’s another argument).
AFAIK, Debian has a similar policy regarding linking—to the point that several years ago, they didn’t ship with a statically linked *shell*—so why not hook up with them and create a common anti-cobag patch for this app, and share the work of maintaining it.
I would also name this guy as a poisonous person if there wasn’t anything but his own dumbassed hostility and displacement issues behind his response. Recall that Debian is now talking about forking glibc because of cobaggery from upstream…
17. Mai 2009 um 15:24
I’m fairly certain Debian’s (and many other distros) policies are similar to fedora’s here on strongly discouraging use of internal-only copies of system libraries. May be worth mentioning that.
In the meantime, I’d recommend naming names, to raise awareness about this not-so-polite-and-sane upstream project behavior.
17. Mai 2009 um 15:40
While I understand why you removed the names, sometimes its good to call tell the truth when someone is being a ass.
With such vitrol, one wonders why this person writes free software at all. If its such a burden to do something so standard.
The only possible excuses I can think of are:
1) upstream are just incompetent/unable to maintain their software.
2) The underlying packages change too fast (I believe this is the problem with ffmpeg sometimes). Although if you say they are non modified, its likely that its the first.
Do you know if $person would accept patches to extract it ? As I’d imagine there are people willing to help, although if he’s not.. there is not much point.
Wade.
17. Mai 2009 um 16:11
That’s really disappointing, especially seeing how much Fedora tries to contribute to upstream communities. It’s a bit short-sighted for maintainers not to look at their software development with the goal of putting it in front of as many people as possible. Look at what the statistics say; why would a maintainer want to give up the potential to put his or her software on millions of additional users’ machines?
17. Mai 2009 um 23:43
Just patch the project to use system libraries, or fork it outright (as upstream is clearly uncooperative).
18. Mai 2009 um 09:09
Plase tell this guy that
it’s not your problem but his because he misses a lot of potential users and contributors
Fedora does matter cause it’s the leader in innovation
It’s also forbidden in Debian, see this bugreport for example.
and last but not least his attitude is pretty arrogant
18. Mai 2009 um 09:24
Paul W. Frields wrote
> That’s really disappointing,
Rude egotists are a renewable natural resource, and the Fedora project will probably not be able to fix that not matter how diligently it contributes to upstreams. Those sorts of comments are just best ignored. There are plenty of people who can work with others just beautifully.
> Look at what the statistics say
The claim that Fedora is not mainstream is, of course, just silly. I have been wondering about the statistics for Ubuntu (along with everyone else I suppose). The last estamates I saw were smaller than the current numbers for Fedora. Of course, the two sets probably overlap with each other and any number of other distros, as people test install distros on their machines.
I maintain over two dozen Fedora systems at work, and they get updated from our own repo mirror, which in turn mirrors a Fedora FTP mirror, and even that does not count towards the stats. I suspect most of the centrally managed sites with lots of machines are like this.
20. Mai 2009 um 01:54
What package is that? So I know to avoid it!
25. Mai 2009 um 11:30
I’d be much interested to know which piece of the software is this? (Oh, are you hiding is just to save the poor guy from looking like an idiot? :)
Seriously, don’t let this demotivate you if the application is useful. Package it, feel free to ask if you need help or review. Following the guy’s advice and contacting the Debian maintainer to fix the embedded libraries issue actually makes sense.
03. Juni 2009 um 10:38
Why cannot be people writing free software arrogant jerks like many others? I think, that (unfortunately) this is the reason why *will* GNU/Linux become desktop OS widely used.