On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:45, Jelle van der Waa 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

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 05:02, Rémy Oudompheng wrote:

You seem to be complaining about lack of documentation in pacman's source code. Tha answer is probably that no, we are not really motivated to write documentation, and the reason is very simple. Nobody in the current contributors has time to do that. The API is documented, which is at least nice. This is no disrespect in any way. Writing proper documentation requires work. Trying to attract new contributors requires work too.

Agreed, it does. My point was that if you make contributing unattractive, then a blanket response of, "You want it? You write it," becomes little more than a brush-off. If contributing is easy, then it's an invitation. What's more, since developers always like their work to be appreciated, once a person does begin contributing, he's likely to contribute more later. The biggest problem is, he has to get over that initial hurdle and learning curve, and if it looks daunting, he's more likely to consider it a waste of time, and less likely to start. My goals were as follows: - Get people to recognize the problem. - Inspire _one_ of the following: 1. Creation of documentation that makes starting to contribute less _work_ and more productive. 2. Cessation of blanket "If you want it, write a patch" statements. If [1] happens, then the issue of [2] is okay. If [2] happens, then the lack of [1] is no longer disrespectful. I'm encouraged that people seem to have recognized the problem, and are putting forth effort to make [1] a reality. ari