(sorry about the formatting. resend) It's good that this is an open discussion so we can get all the facts and misinformation presented for everyone to see and judge. Let's get the main points addressed first. Details are next. This is the subject of this discussion and the main points are about: ** AUR guideline on `Duplicate` packages, and Package Maintainers ** ** Firstly: AUR guideline on `Duplicate` packages This is the current rule:
Check the AUR if the package already exists. If it is currently maintained, changes can be submitted in a comment for the maintainer's attention. If it is unmaintained or the maintainer is unresponsive, the package can be adopted and updated as required. Do not create duplicate packages.
This rule *is* the problem. This particular problem between wechat and wechat-bin could have been avoided if this rule were not listed as such. This is the basis for K and M. Rule is rule when it's in effect. But don't forget rules can be changed, even though changing a rule can be hard and it takes courage. This rule as of now is apparently not perfect yet works relatively well. Are AUR staff willing to discuss and amend it to best cover more cases? Or perhaps it's not worthy of the effort to gain marginal improvement. By the way I believe my original question 1 remains unaddressed even if this rule stays the same in the foreseeable future. ** Secondly: Package Maintainers I give up on this. Details is below and in first message of this thread(I don't think it's read carefully or how can someone agrees that M did a good job there):
Decisions have not been taken arbitrarily, Muflone is just trying to deal with this situation and I'm personally very thankful that someone is actually willing to try to solve this mess (excuse the term, but frankly that's what it is at that point). The rest of the staff approves Muflone's decision / judgment (which is purely about trying to make the package work, regardless of the maintainer). Such assumptions and judgments about staff decision's making are not welcomed here [2]. Keep in mind that this is voluntary work.
Users are still free to maintain their own PKGBUILD locally or in an unofficial repository [4] though.
Duplicate packages are not allowed, this is a clearly stated rule
Some rules have to be established
voluntary work
Arch Linux is not run as a democracy
(which, unfortunately, cannot always please everyone).
cannot always please everyone
Please, work _with_ us.
PMs: Just be fair as much as you can. It's not democracy, PMs/staff have the final say. Your house, your rules. My way or the highway etc I get it. I'm not asking any of that, any more. Just be fair. You manage the domain and it has responsibilities. Also bear in mind that it goes without saying you are probably doing 98% of a good job keeping AUR the way it is, but at the same time you have to be able to stand will-intended criticism be it true or false, improve if you can on the true ones and not let the false ones get to you. It's not easy or pleasant to do this. For all I care wechat-bin is the 2nd AUR package I use and I can live without it. I am volunteering the same as you guys spending the time and effort to help perhaps make things are a bit better, albeit not at a level you guys are contributing and hiding behind curtains. I am just a user I have no right I did my part to raise a flag. The rest is up to you folks. You guys are in charge. "arbitrary" in my opinion is a neutral word and if it's not acceptable especially given what M has done I'd say it's not my problem. Someone needs to reflect on what's been said and done. Same goes for K who whines about all of a sudden stones being thrown in a certain direction. Since CoC is quoted, apply any penalty as you fit.
Which is a totally unjustified and unacceptable behavior that resulted in a waste of time for everyone (both users and staff...).
I meant to say "wrongful" instead of "wrong". Excuse my english.
After all, it seems like there isn't any other distro shipping wechat [5] and seeing the controversy & the overall pain it causes from a moderation stand point to our staff, that's an actual possibility we are eventually considering.
wechat is a big deal in China, south-east Asia and it will keep expanding. It's available in popular distro UOS and Deepin appstores in China before until not long ago Tencent finally produces official binary based on QT which is a very positive gesture well received by any Chinese linux user. Ask around. But hey if staff decides to ban it based on misinformation, so be it.
for the sole purpose of providing a freely accessible and community maintained package repositories.
Yet second opinion or choices nuanced as a `duplicate` package is not an option in AUR due to various practicality reasons. What an irony. Lastly, 50 votes gets you around top1500 among ~90k AUR packages. It is significant in my view. And I told K the same thing: RESPECT. Or just pull out the rule book, enforce the rule and wipe it clean, because K brought it to your attention because of this xxxxxx rule. K and you had to do it this way. What a world. Peace. On Thu, Jan 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM Bert Peters <bertptrs@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thu, 2025-01-02 at 18:05 +0100, Robin Candau wrote:
As said above, this situation has been going for months and is particularly difficult to deal with. We have multiple separate mail threads about the overall situation and most comments on the AUR are not written in English which makes it non-trivial to deal with from a moderation standpoint.
Decisions have not been taken arbitrarily, Muflone is just trying to deal with this situation and I'm personally very thankful that someone is actually willing to try to solve this mess (excuse the term, but frankly that's what it is at that point). The rest of the staff approves Muflone's decision / judgment (which is purely about trying to make the package work, regardless of the maintainer). Such assumptions and judgments about staff decision's making are not welcomed here [2]. Keep in mind that this is voluntary work.
I would very much like to second this statement. Mulfone and Antiz did not make their decisions in isolation; I approve of their decisions and conduct.
The submission guidelines [1] are clear on the rule against duplicates. Sometimes variants make sense, but that doesn't mean an endless line of small tweaks should be in the AUR. You are free to choose a slightly different set of options, but there is no reason the resulting PKGBUILDs have to live in the AUR.
I would also like to emphasize the remarks about writing in langauges other than English. We are a very international community and as such when discussing we should write in a language that is intelligible for everyone. We cannot moderate what we do not understand.
The team of Package Maintainers tries to keep the AUR useful and welcoming to all, but it is sometimes hard to please everyone. In situations like this, where many people are claiming different things and there isn't a clear "correct" answer, decisions have to be made, and we do our best. As repeatedly stated, this is a volunteer position.
Cheers,
Bert.
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines