XFree 4.2.0 - again
Hi! (it's my first post here) You are probably sick and tired of this topic, but ... IT'S A QUARTER YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF 4.2.0 RELEASE! Yes, it really has been three (3) months (!) since it was released. Time to throw some gasoline on the flames ... Branden apparently is incapable of releasing it. So, I suggest that anyone, with enough knowledge and TIME, reading this, would volunteer as XFree package maintainer. Branden's comments suggest that he just doesn't have enough time for that. Before you all start flaming and bashing me.. No, I am NOT willing to prepare and release that package. I know next to nothing about Debian internals, and I don't have enough time either (with my other projects and a dayjob). Anyway THIS IS NO REASON for me to "shut the fuck up" (to quote Branden's welcome-pic, which I have been weekly refreshing for couple of months now). I am just saying what other developers don't dare to say, as it might damage and rip apart their magic castle. This risk must be taken, or Debian may die anyhow. Of course, if no-one else is capable of maintaining that package, Debian is in trouble. In that case I suggest hiring a paid programmer for the job (if that should happen, I am willing to donate). XF is way too essential component to be ignored like this. Anyway, no-one will volunteer as long as Branden is officially working on it, so I suggest that the first thing to do is getting rid of him. He can freely continue working with smaller projects, but XF is way too big for him, with his limited resources (time). Another solution *I* (yes, my opinion only) could accept would be Branden re-evaluating his values, devoting more time for Debian. As a proof of that he should release 4.2.0 in one week (the deadline would be 2002-04-23) and make sure that new releases also get deb'ed in time. Yet another option, of course, would be Branden directly naming his successor. Now you can start bashing me. - Tronic - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again
Someone said that X is a difficult package to maintain and that there is nothing wrong if PACKAGING it takes 3+ months. People have managed to install it from sources in matter of HOURS (well, that didn't work for me, dunno why). Based on that packaging it during a single weekend should be possible. As we are talking about UNSTABLE here, no real testing needs to be done before releasing - that's what the Debian Unstable is for, right? 4.2.0 doesn't matter, as it's not going into Woody; what needs to be done on the X packages is getting the highest quality packages X packages for Woody, which he is doing just fine. Well, it seems that you almost need 4.2.0 for Woody anyway, if it is going to work with any recent hardware (unless you are aiming for servers only). Or are you going to hack 4.2.0 display drivers into 4.1.0? This is about the rudest message I've seen on this mailing list in a That's the result of reading your (=Debian developers') rude replies to very polite questions asked by other people. while. "I have too much stuff to do to actually help Debian, but I'm willing to order around volunteers." Part of the reason Branden is the X maintainer, is because X is possibly the hardest package in Debian to maintain, and Branden is willing and able to do a job most of the rest of us couldn't or wouldn't. I have seen that same model happening in many places (trustees of associations, software developers, ..). Everybody thinks that someone is vital for what he is doing and no-one is willing to replace him... Well, then someone else comes and questions that - and gets lots of flame. Often that still, finally, leads to replacing that person with a new, "fresh" one. Usually the change is for the good, after all. People who have done something for ages just don't care about it anymore, but new people are willing to devote all their time for it.. - Tronic - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again
Forgot to cc this to the list.. The message is attached. --- Begin Message --- I think your case would be more convincing if you mentioned some particular reason why Debian ought to upgrade. Presumably it supports more cards or something. Having the current version is not super important in and of itself. It's the hardware support. People are getting sick of VGA/VESA. I thought that it would be obvious. I think Debian should put all its resources right at the moment into a freeze first of all. So, Debian has a fixed number of developers, all working at 100%? I thought that it was fuzzy number of developers working when they feel like they are able and want to code (which is what free software is all about, IMO). Nobody is stopping you building your own version of XF86 4.2 debs and putting them up on a web page, or encouraging/paying other people to I guess you didn't read my original message: the problem is that I know next to nothing about Debian. > do so. Mere assertion that other people could do a better job than > Branden is not very persuasive. Maybe not *better* job, but they could do it *now* .. Also, if Branden is working on 4.1.0, why doesn't someone else do 4.2.0? Sounds like two separate projects to me. What comes to encouraging other people - guess what I'm doing right now. At reasonable rates, I would expect it to cost at least USD1, possibly a lot more, to build and test a reasonable combination of platforms and systems. I believe "Unstable" (or even "Testing") is for testing and there surely are people willing to test it. Putting it together so that it runs on i386 really shouldn't be a big problem for any Debian developer. Other platforms aren't nearly as significant as i386 (not many users, no much new hardware). So what if he names you? Then I'll be spending lot of time in the local library, trying to learn how *nix/Debian work, and the release will take forever. Bad choice, really. Surely this is a troll? Nope, I'm for real. Maybe a bit provocative, but for real. - Tronic - --- End Message ---
Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again
>> That's the result of reading your (=Debian developers') rude replies >> to very polite questions asked by other people. > If you claim that your first post was polite I am truly amazed. It was > a very rude and very clueless attack against Branden. You owe him an > apology. My message was not meant to be polite. Instead its purpose was to shake people a bit (and it succeeded). Those polite questions with rude answers I was referring to can be easily found with a quick search on Google, if anyone cares. After silently reading those for several months, I just wouldn't want to go there and post another polite question. What I didn't know when posting that was that you are trying to release Woody very soon. It is acceptable that, at such phase, all time is temporarily (for couple of weeks) devoted for it. The message I manually forwarded to the list.. while Mozilla was sending it, I noticed that the CC to list was missing and thought that the reason was me accidentally hitting Reply (instead of Reply All). I apologize. Some people said that I'm not contributing. I don't know if they meant Debian or open-source in general. In case of the former, they are right. I'm a human with limited resources. >> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.8) > Why doesn't that surprise me? Because you know that my hardware doesn't work in Debian and I have to use W98? I realized too late that it was a mistake to get rid of that Matrox G400. > Do you know how to operate CVS and get your OWN copy of 4.2? LOL. As if I didn't use CVS daily for developement and as if I hadn't co'ed CVS-versions of XF few weeks before 4.2.0 was released (and several times after that too), to get the hardware support. Every version refused to compile here though. I am not going to apologize anything from Branden - I said that he doesn't have enough time that doesn't seem like an insult to me. I also understand why 4.2.0 won't go in Woody (and I don't care: I can always use those "unstable" (or experimental) versions). Anyway, no need to add my address to your mail filters - this will be my last post about this topic, on this list. Now that I have surely awaken you, it's better not waste time flaming here, while you could be fine-tuning Woody. Thanks for the greatest distro (if it wasn't the greatest, I wouldn't even write to this list: a little dilemma for you;). - Tronic - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
