On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:19 AM, Loui Chang <louipc.ist@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 09:31:17AM -0700, w9ya wrote:
> I do NOT normally comment here and certainly NOT with the tone I am about to
> use. But you guys (plural) are attempting to dictate binding discussions
> without first doing your own due diligence. Or you are asking me and others
> to do your due diligence for you? This is, of course, very troubling to me.
> It should be to other TUs too.

Past discussions are less relevant because they don't have the same
effects as the problems we face today.

An assumption on your part. I doubt it is true either IF the problem is server overload of some kind. Arch has often had those problems in the past, and IN FACT it was a strain at first to accomodate the user repos.


> It is NOT a given that the voting statistics are accurate or even
> "..somewhat accurate". MANY reasons have been given in the past why such
> accuracy is not possible under the current voting scheme, so I again ask you
> to do your due diligence, i.e. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do a search on
> previous discussions about this that have taken place (repeatedly) over (at
> least) the last couple of years.

Nothing in life is a given, but we make conclusions based in empirical
data. This is how decisions are made to improve things. It's what drives
advancement.

But this data is NOT empirical at all. To say as much is to ignore what the methods arr and how it is collected and from what percentage of the whole and so forth.
 


> I know for a *FACT* that many of my packages are used, some VERY heavily and
> by MANY users and yet have NO votes. I will give you here but two of the
> several reasons;

> 1 - I maintain an offshoot version of archlinux, derived from faunos, called
> "shackstick". It is used and is becoming quite popular amongst the ham radio
> community. It is packaged as a whole and the user does NOT download packages
> or even is part of the arch linux community, so NO votes are taken. Yet it
> uses over 25 of my packages that would seem to otherwise be without votes.

If your community cares about the packages that are provided in
[community] they should vote. Voting wasn't put in the AUR for absolutely
no reason. If someone doesn't vote for a package then I would assume
that it isn't all that important if the package is in community or not.

Well, again another history lesson for ya; It was added ONLY as a guide becuase some TUs wanted to knwo at least something. It was WELL understood that it was a lousy gauge of ANYTHING specific and could NEVER be empirically used.
 

If your users don't even download the packages then there is no point
for those packages to be in community.

Well if fact I get comments about them from direct arhc linux users, so that only goes to point out how lousy the voting system is if it is suppose to say if the progrma is being used.


> 2 - Since the votes are NOT reflective of downloads, and for the above
> reason downloads are NOT reflective of the numbers of users, and FURTHER
> many users do NOT vote, there can be NO correlation between votes and usage.
> It isn't even a rough estimate.

It is a rough estimate. Please review the pkgstats results.

Rough is an interesting word. It covers a lot of ground. So, above you said it meant something empirical. Exactly what does a rough estimate mean, and how does that meaning relate to it being empirical ?
 


Furthermore you're making it sound like moving a package from
community is some kind of travesty, like it will disappear.

No. You can still maintain it in unsupported, and you can still run your
own repo like the fine folks running the arch-games repo.

Also, maybe you should recommend server upgrades to your offshoot distro
so you're able to host your own niche repo instead of telling Arch to
serve people who don't even want to participate in the community.

Again, you do NOT understand what the community system is or what it was suppose to accomplish. Please read some of the earlier email threads on this. I sincerely ask you to educate yourself about the reasons this thing has evolved to the system it is currently. It is NOT merely a bunch of repos with users deciding what is to become a binary package. If it was, that would be so much LESS than what it offers now. And it arch would become just another distro, no better or worse, merely different.

The excellent wiki usage AND the excellent free-flowing community system are what make arch uniquely better. And good participation in a wiki can be had in other ways, but the community system is truly a wonderful free-market style system.

What you suggest is a restriction for want of a better server support. IMnsHO, this will be a bad reason to do the kinds of things you suggest.

Best regards;

Bob Finch