[aur-general] Should TU put in [community] packages they use?

[w9ya at qrparci.net]

> On Jan 19, 2008 4:08 AM, Aaron Schaefer <aaron at elasticdog.com> wrote:
>> On Jan 18, 2008 8:50 AM, bardo <ilbardo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > This came to my mind reading the discussion about Sergej, but after
>> some thinking I couldn't make up a clear opinion about it, so this
>> thread just brings up the question.
>> >
>> > There's a few packages I maintain in unsupported that almost nobody
>> voted, so I never moved them to [community]. But what if I use them
>> in my daily activities? I'm interested in having an up-to-date
>> package, so I'd maintain, build and test it anyway... should I share
>> it with its (small) user base?
>> >
>> >
>> > Corrado
>>
>>
>> This is my take...I don't see any down side to including the packages
>> in community.  I suppose you could say that bandwidth on the mirrors
>> would be one, but that's about it.  People are arguing that the AUR
>> should be run like to official repositories where the devs ask the
>> other devs if it's okay to add packages to extra/core, but their
>> reasoning for the recent cleanup and rules regarding that aspect are
>> because those two repos define Arch Linux as a distribution.  That's
>> not really the case with community.
>>
>> Even if only a few people are voting for the packages, like Corrado
>> said, the TU is doing the work anyway, so why not let everyone benefit
>> from it since downloading/installing from the community repo is a lot
>> easier for everyone than building from a PKGBUILD, especially if
>> you're not familiar with building from source. Plus votes might not be
>> an accurate portrayal of usage, if you consider that many times
>> dependencies of a popular package might not have nearly as many votes
>> as the package that requires them, but I'd still put them in the same
>> repo for convenience.
>>
>> Yes, the TUs should be helping to move popular packages in to
>> community as well, but ideally it would be a package that they are
>> interested in using themselves so they actually will be able to test
>> and use it themselves rather than just knowing that it built without
>> errors.  I think Allesio made that point very well.
>
> But the AUR Trusted User Guidelines says otherwise. Ideally,
> "... He/she maintains popular packages, ..."
>
> "A TU may adopt any package at any time. But because the TU's time is
> limited, he should try to only adopt popular packages. The voting
> mechanism in the AUR allows a TU to quickly gauge which packages users
> want."
>
>>From the guidelines in the wiki, I can only conclude that TUs have the
> duty to adopt and maintain popular packages (nothing is said about
> 'personal' packages though). Of course, I might be wrong if the
> guidelines in the wiki are already outdated or are no longer
> applicable/used. Lastly, the last line, "The voting mechanism in the AUR
> allows a TU to quickly gauge which packages users want." suggests that
> TUs should also consider what the users want (maybe that's the reason
> why the repo was named 'community').
>
> --
> Darwin M. Bautista

Hey Darwin and the gang;

Well, the "guidelines" are just that, as they are NOT rules, and part of a
wiki document that may change at any time.

And please ALSO remember that the paragraph starts with "A TU may adopt
any package at any time.", which *IS* the basis for a TU's decision. i.e.
The decision rest solely with the TU as it always has.

So, if you understand that the wiki is a suggestion, and presents *A*
method to consider, then you understand fully that the TU makes his or her
decision and then is judged on his or her Quality and NOT quantity or any
other specific item (including the voting field).

And since it is a simple process to become a TU, then those amongst us
that would like to base their repo contributions on the AUR voting field
may do so, as they can merely write a few PKGBUILDs and submit them for
consideration when they ask to become a TU.

IF you seek admission as a TU you will find that you have to merely ask.
And the more TUs then the more fun we will all have and if YOU want to put
highly voted items from the AUR into the repo, you certainly can.

Very best regards;

Bob Finch