Re: Napster clients, so much diversity.
Michael Stone (mstone@debian.org) wrote:
> Jacob was talking about a technical restriction: if most of a program's
> features are unimplemented or unreliably implemented, it is technically
> incomplete. We're feeling around the edges of some rational metrics for
> buggy/useless packages, and it would be nice to have some guidelines on
> this point. But we can't even have a discussion about what might be
> useful in determining removal candidates without someone throwing in a
> hand-waving argument that the distribution's size is irrelevent and that
> any trivial package that someone throws together in an evening is
> sacrosanct. (I snipped the page you spent expanding on that basic
> theme.) The only person who brought up removing a package because of
> personal dislike was you! That kind of argument only serves to distract
> people from the real issue: how do we deal with junk packages? We know
> that personal dislike is an invalid justification; more useful would be
> to discuss some valid criteria.
i was trying to make a point more about the happhazard speed at which
packages are added. i'd love to see debian continue to grow. most people i
know don't even bother with anything past the installation cd and install
via the magic of apt-get. the images i install from are about 8 months old.
media desnsity is a poor argument for limiting debian's growth since (in my
experience) most people download only what they need.
on the other hand, there is a lot of cruft in the distribution, and
something should be done about it. i'm not advocating a package witch hunt,
but i think there should be something in the new maintainers guide about
making sure that some kid's "hello world" example is ready for mass
consumption.
>
> Here's a start: Let's say someone installs a package and finds that it's
> mostly a menu bar and an about box. Most of the menu items do nothing,
> and the few that do something lead to immediate crashes. He brings it up
> on debian-devel and a couple of people confirm that the package does
> nothing. No one chimes in that the package is useful. Is it too much to
> ask that the developer justify its inclusion in debian?
>
> --
> Mike Stone
bravo! lets reap this kind of thing before it makes it into the
distribution. now what's the best way to get the word out about this kind of
discussion? are enough people using popularity contest?
--
(jacob kuntz) jpk@cape.com jake@{megabite,underworld}.net
(megabite systems) "think free speech, not free beer."
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