[arch-general] NEW RECORD! 769 packages out of date

[Morten Linderud]

On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 12:47:32PM +0200, Vasi Vilvoiu via arch-general wrote:
> On 11/3/21 11:37, Morten Linderud via arch-general wrote:
> > 
> > Then I guess they posted this on 4chan because they love stirring up shit like
> > this. This isn't about helping anyone. This is nothing but FUD and being
> > self-righteous. Expecting overworked maintainers to do more while not lifting
> > a finger and pointing at problems in an unconstructive manner.
>
> That's unfair to your userbase. There's no way for people to contribute to
> core packages, period. Community packages require being a TU, which as far
> as I know is not an easy process to go through. The AUR does not accept
> "under any circumstances"[1] packages already in community/core.

It's not unfair. There are correct ways to contribute, and there are wrong ways
to contribute.

Posting 4 spam posts on some linux subreddits: Wrong way to contribute.
Posting threads on fucking 4chan: Wrong way to contribute.

Engaging in a proper conversation about what can be done and ways for people to
contribute: Correct way to contribute.

And that was done here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/qe65hr/why_are_636_outofdate_flagged_packages_considered/

Everything after this has been nothing but condescending.

You will notice I'm only addressing the two wrong ways. It's not about lumping
everyone in this conversation into that, but you *really* need to figure out if
you want to contribute to the current 4chan brigade on this topic or be
constructive.

> We understand that maintainers may be overworked, we sympathize, and the
> message here should have been more focused on "how can we make this
> situation better".

And that is the issue I'm pointing out, and why the intentions of the original
poster doesn't align with the people coming afterwards.

> But you do need to tell us what kind of help you need. Or, if you feel that
> there is no help needed, make this clear and let us know that the status quo
> is acceptable from your point of view.

It's hard because we can't let people loose on the repositories. There needs to
be a structural change to how we adopt packagers and how we accept user
contributors. But it's hard for people outside of Arch to do anything here.

If you want to get active you need to either engage on the bugtracker or engage
in the development projects that help us get git support so we can more easily
organize user contributions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/qe65hr/why_are_636_outofdate_flagged_packages_considered/hhrd513/

> Best regards,
> Vasi Vilvoiu
> 
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines#Rules_of_submission


And let me be precise here,

All projects have issues. None of this is unique to Arch. Arch doesn't have more
nor less issues then any other distributions that is running well into their
second decade with an active user base.

This doesn't mean that any issues doesn't matter, far from it. But people need
to realize that managing FOSS projects is an endless pit of problems and issues
to be solved. Spreading FUD and doomsday predictions does nothing but drive
people away from engaging in these issues.

-- 
Morten Linderud
PGP: 9C02FF419FECBE16
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