[arch-dev-public] Unannounced mass edit of community PKGBUILDs

[Xyne]

Alexander Rødseth wrote:

>I disagree with you here, for two reasons. Firstly, I view the package
>ownership as a collective ownership, where the package maintainers of
>Arch Linux maintain all the packages together. At least for
>[community]. This is reflected on how we help each other out on
>TODO-lists, with bugs and with updates on packages. I certainly
>wouldn't mind if someone fixed a problem with one of the PKGBUILDs I
>maintain, or ran a script (that could easily be rolled back) that made
>a series of minor positive changes (like converting every PKGBUILD in
>[community] to UTF-8). Secondly, the changes were made on so many
>packages, that it's hard to believe anyone would take it personally or
>view the change as disrespectful. Of course, if people cling to their
>packages, believe every man is an island and put much pride in their
>package descriptions, I can understand why it can be perceived as
>disrespectful, but I still insist that it is not.

I think my meaning was misunderstood.

Of course the PKGBUILDs and everything else in the repos belong to Arch, not
each individual packager. I didn't mean that it was disrespectful in the sense
of encroaching on others' "property". I meant that it was disrespectful in the
sense that you concluded that most of the other packagers were producing
substandard packages and that you needed to help them do it right.

I could clarify further but this is already too far off topic and likely to
create tension.


>> Good intentions or not, I find the lack of consideration troubling.
>
>I found your implication that my intentions may not have been good troubling...

"Good intentions or not" is an idiomatic expression. It conveys that I thought
your intentions were good, but that it doesn't change what follows. Compare
"believe it or not" [1].



Concluding, I don't think it was a big issue but it's bigger than you think, I
know it was meant well, and no animals were harmed in the making of this
change, so everything's fine. Just discuss it first next time. ;)



[1] http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/believe+it+or+not