Okay Greg a few easy questions I am happy to answer for you;

- Um, the freedom of the AUR is because of the freedom in the entire TU system (aur is a part of it). If you remove some freedom from one, then you risk the same freedom in the other. That *IS* human nature and the way things tend to work. So I wil ask you to please explain how making the community repo "more official" will help you ? Please be specific as I am just not following you at the moment. I do not see what is broken.

- I am not unhappy with ANYONE's commitment or how much they are getting done. But I do take seriously some of the outbursts about who is doing what AND making the TUs more responsive to the aurvotes and so forth. NO ONE should have to listen to such things when it is so simple to become a TU and spend time on a packaging solution. I hope you understand that I do not expect you or anyone to do ANYTHING but use archlinux and interact when you have a problem of some sort. So, yeah I am fine with you. And you have not called me names and even more ugly things.

IN FACT, if someone like you wrote me privately and asked me to consider helping them with THEIR PKGBUILD I have been known to do so. Arch_assistant is one such PKGBUILD I have helped people with. Having a lot of TUs around can be very helpful for this kind of thing. Will making the TU system more "official" (and I *assume* you mean more like the discussions and so forth the devs do concerning what goes into their repos) help or hurt those seeking help with their PKGBUILDS and seeking attention in getting their PKGBUILDs into the repo ? Will more or less people become Tus. Has anyone proposing these changes even bothered to ask these questions publicly ? And yes the likely answers DO matter. Even for the things you are concerned about.

I decided to pick up the google-earth one because it had become a problem. I had some issues getting it to install and work here. So I took it over, politely btw when those who's work it was were NOT willing (or able ?) to continue with it on their own. (In any event I asked and through the course of my asking it was turned over to me.) THE POINT ? Lately I have been spending my time fighting this proposal. And having to spend time away from PKGBUILDs and attending to new matters like asking permission to add things to the repo will mean less of my time for the real work.

- Yes users are ALWAYS VERY IMPORTANT, including the ones that do NOT vote. The problem is that a user has to understand enough about archlinux to get ahold of aurvotes and yaourt and manage to install them, and we forget how hard this process can be compared to simply installing it and using the binary repos. The ham radio community seeks solutions to problems adn quite frankly arch is a good solution, but asking them to vote and so forth is NOT a good solution to seeing their use represented as it is quite a bit of additional work to just vote on something. Heck most of the users of arch are not even registered users, let alone voters.

-  I have been a steady user of arch linux since it's inception. If Judd V. has stopped using it, I am now the longest continuous user of it I know of. I have never stopped. As I mentioned earlier, TUs are not restricted to perform ANY output and are allowed to "go on hiatus". I had some medical issues that prevented me from a more active participation during the time period you mention. I am happy to be alive and able to walk now as well as contribute as I can..

- As far as the developers having a say in this. Heck they can say the deal is off and it is time to kill the TU experiment. I am actually o.k. with that, as it would be intellectually honest. Instead we are asking for the dope on what is wrong and in the past two days have found out it was NOT the immediate need of a resources problem we were told it was. In fact we found out essentially the opposite. No problems there. We are also being told about future fixes in store with NO indication of what they might be and what they are. I am concerned because I understand human nature. I make my living predicting short and long term effects of policy decisions. And I make a **good** living at it. And this failure to disclose what the devs are contemplating and telling us will be in our future is sad. More especially since the TU system is NOT theirs to do so with. If it was the rest of the distro, I would not complain about these last few weeks because it would not be my place to complain about their repo.

I hope you understand better now. And I will let you in on a small secret. Since it appears that (some of) the devs are asking the TUs to make this decision, and without any demonstrated problem or any demonstrated statistics to back up this so-called need; I will not likely spend any more time worrying about what happens. I should probably stay and fight this silliness, but in the end if the devs really want this unique TU experiment to become their toy, I will gladly let them have it. I will simply quit worrying about something that they will destroy it the process of "making it more official".

And yes, the prime movers in this proposal ARE the devs. You allude to that, and you are right.

Regards;

Bob Finch

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Grigorios Bouzakis <grbzks@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 6:59 AM, w9ya <w9ya@qrparci.net> wrote:
> Greg;
>
> I assume you are not aware that anyone can apply and become a TU. Because of
> that, if anyone thinks something needs to be done that remains undone, then
> the answer is to simply ask to become a TU. Within a short time, if you are
> ready with some few examples of your work, you will become one. We have only
> turned down one applicant and that was for lying to us.
>

Hi bfinch,
Let me get some things straight.
If you dont remember, since i had told you about it the last time we
chated on the MLs
I havent used [community] in more than a year. I only use 3 packages
from unsupported,
and theyre all maintained by me. In case anyone was wondering why i
biitch there arent
more of those popular packages in community, well i couldnt care less.
Its the common good im interesting in not my own.
If not all [extra] and mainly xorg doesnt to [community]  thats not
gonna change easy.
I dont believe in the TU system. IMO Its broken by design. Maybe it
worked in the past.
The reason to that is mosly that its not Official.
I surely admit that AUR is one of Archlinux's strongest points but the
scricts are generally
of low quality and MAINLY in the binary reposisitory.
I am not really insterested in that part of Archlinux. Its only the
core that matters to me.
Thats what im building my workstation on. If i find out anything wrong
with ay aspect i try
to fix it.
I have said so in he past that if the way the community repository
works doesnt change
then Archlinux needs to be more souce based. I dont need a repository
like that and IMO
neither does Archlinux.
Being a TU is not the only way to help Archlinux, and i try to help
out as much as i can in
other ways. Im not saying i am not making mistakes.

> MORE TO THE POINT; When the aurvotes was added, we all knew that it could
> not represent even one user correctly. Heck I have programs that dozens of
> folks use that show NO VOTES, and they are using them by downloading them
> from the community repo directly. At the time the aurvotes were added we
> were promised that it would **NEVER  be mentioned that a TU was remiss by
> not adding a aur entry that had some votes. Somehow over the course of a
> couple of years we are now using a system of statistics that is decidedly in
> error, with over two magnitudes of extremes and no way to determine the
> shape of the curve (and the means). i.e. We have NO idea of even what ZERO
> votes means.
>
> It boggles the mind.
>
>
> Very best regards;
>
> Bob Finch

Can i ask you something else? I expect to get an answer this time though.
I am aware of a fact probably other people and probably some TUs arent
aware of either.
I dont know when exactly you became a TU, or how things worked back then.
Your experience is welcome but werent you away from Archlinux for a
couple of years?
2006-2008 from what i can estimate.
How can you so conviniently talk about how are things are done? I
think that for some
reason you assume that in the 2 years you were away nothing changed.
Which i guess
i wrong. And you have proven that with abusing the repository.
Sure freedom is great. So are you long philosophical emails.
But youre playing in someone elses playground with their toys.
Thats exactly where it shows the development module is TOTALLY broken.
You, and IMO Sergej, at the very least are abusing the power you were given.
But if phrakture who is in charge of the distro ATM tells you
something you tell him to STFU
cause we are TUs not developers and we are free to do whatever we want
on our special
place and he has no right to interfere.
Well since you abused the hospitality you dont deserve such priviledges IMO.
I will say it one last time. Either official [community] repository
with some kind of moderation OFC,
or not at all.
And i dont really care how things were done when Archlinux had 10
times less users than it does
now in 2003.  Only how they should be done now. And the developers
should have a saying in this.

That would sum up my thoughts.