[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] [extra] repository cleanup

Loui Chang louipc.ist at gmail.com
Sat Nov 13 16:18:02 CET 2010


On Sat 13 Nov 2010 15:23 +0100, Heiko Baums wrote:
> Am Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:46:30 +0100
> schrieb Andrea Scarpino <andrea at archlinux.org>:
> 
> > On Thursday 11 November 2010 22:54:36 Roman Kyrylych wrote:
> > > I adopted some (and edited the page).
> > Nice, today we have 291 orphans packages in [extra] (they were 352
> > three days ago). 62 will be moved to [community]. 127 to AUR.
> > 
> > I didn't expect this success. I can start moving them today if you
> > agree.
> 
> Nice, then I would need to install 110 packages from AUR and compile
> them manually. When I switched to Arch Linux about 3 years ago it was
> less than 50.
> 
> When will the so called "binary distribution" Arch Linux become a
> second Gentoo, a pure source based distribution, because "no developer
> is interested in maintaining" anything anymore? Btw., PKGBUILDs also in
> AUR need to be maintained.
> 
> Really sad this progress and this massive and pointless cleanup.
> 
> You really should reconsider this cleanup. You should consider that
> such a distribution - and Arch Linux isn't a small and unimportant
> distro anymore - is not only about some personal preferences of the
> developers. Developers of such a binary distro should also maintain
> packages which they are not using themselves.

Sorry, Heiko. I don't think you properly understand Arch culture here.
If you want something done you are expected to contribute and put forth
your own effort to make it happen. The TUs and Devs cannot be expected
to be your personal support team and maintain hundreds of packages that
you're particularly interested in unless you're willing to compensate
them for their time. Their time is much more valuable than that.

Just like your time is too valuable to do it yourself.

I'd rather maintainers be forthcoming and allow users to maintain
packages that they can't properly support rather than carrying a burden
that may be harmful or stressful.

> I wouldn't say anything if you would cleanup the official repos from
> unnecessary, unimportant and unused or hardly used packages like some
> ttf fonts, GTK1 themes, etc. But there are too many, too important
> packages in your list which definitely belong into the official binary
> repos and which are in the official binary repos of every other binary
> distribution.

Arch is not just 'another binary distro'. It's a distro for those who
contribute. If other people can benefit from that work - that's great!

Cheers



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