On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:45, Jelle van der Waa <jelle@vdwaa.nl> wrote:
I'm not downplaying the effort that Allan (et al.?) has put forth -- i think it's excellent! But so far, this has all the markings of a single-person project, being coded by someone who doesn't _want_ contributions.
You're wrong here, it's not a single person project, i have seen Dan and others commit package signing implementations too. For example: http://projects.archlinux.org/devtools.git/commit/?id=c16e7c25c9432e0d2f0fde...
I'm not wrong. That's what the "(et al.?)" was for. It still has the markings (appearance, feel, or facade, if you will) of a single-person project. The fact that others who are intimately familiar with pacman --- and have been in ongoing discussions with Allan --- have committed changes does not change my point. And remember, Dan is already a committer for pacman. By definition, he's intimately familiar with it. Even if a non-committer has spent many hours, or even days becoming familiar with the project, and then managed to eek out a patch that was found useful, requiring that a would-be contributor do such a thing is disrespectful to that person's time. Worse, would-be contributors are likely to move on and spend their time elsewhere. I'm getting off-track. Jelle, i'm not sure what your point was. Were you just saying that others deserve credit, too? If so, i agree. Thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far (i'm not alone in my appreciation, believe me). Or, were you saying that, since others have contributed in the past, the project must already be contributor-friendly; those involved needn't put forth any additional effort to attract contributors; and responses like, "if you want it to arrive faster, submit a patch," are valid and useful? I think it's clear that this is not the case.
Probably the biggest obstacle is implementing the infrastructure.
That's interesting, because when i read Allan's Package_Signing page, it appeared to me that the infrastructure has mostly been completed. The "TODO" tasks all seem fairly minor. This sort of confusion illustrates my point. I'd venture to say that time spent clearing such confusion would at least be met by a worthwhile return-on-investment by contributors. I've already expressed my interest in being one of those contributors. Three times now. ari