[aur-general] TU application: Laszlo Papp

[Heiko Baums]

Well, I'm not a TU, and can't vote, but keep in mind, what a TU is,
what TU means and what a TU's task is.

I don't want to offend Laszlo, and I'm probably doing him wrong.

I guess you TUs know this anyway, but let me say it anyhow.

Trusted User doesn't mean, he likes Arch Linux - I like it, too -, he
likes to contribute to Arch Linux and to the community. Trusted User
means, that this user is completely trustworthy and that this user can
be completely trusted especially in security-related stuff. There are
so many doubts about Laszlo, that I don't think, that he is really
trustworthy. I, too, have my doubts about it. And keep in mind, that
not only other TUs but also every other normal user must trust a TU.

The task of a TU is not to maintain a few - maybe 300 - packages in
AUR. This can do every user. Writing documentations in the Wiki can
also be done by every normal user. And every normal user can help other
people in the forums.

Btw., I don't know, why someone needs to maintain or at least
contribute 300 packages in or to AUR. Most of them - except of about 2
or 3 - are vim plugins anyway. I only maintain a few packages I need
myself, so that I can test them, before I upload them to AUR. I don't
think, that I could do it with 300 packages.

The task of a TU is especially maintaining and compiling packages in
the community binary repository and to do administrative and security
related stuff in the AUR like orphaning packages etc. A TU needs to be
able to write working and trustworthy PKGBUILDs, and a TU needs some
more than only basic scripting skills, because some applications need
PKGBUILDs which are not quite trivial, the people - every Arch Linux
user - rely on and trust the binary repositories in terms of security
and stability. I don't see this with Laszlo.

Particularly see the symlink thing in his PKGBUILD for the library. If
he was a Gentoo user for more than a year - I was one for about 6 years
-, he should know, that a library doesn't have to be symlinked to keep
or get reverse dependencies compatible to updated libraries. See
revdep-rebuild, which every Gentoo user knows only too well. Symlinking
a library can only be a quick and dirty workaround locally on one PC
until the reverse depedency is rebuilt or fixed. If such a symlink is
needed by another package, than he should file a feature request to
upstream. So this shows me, that Laszlo doesn't have enough scripting
and packaging skills, at least not enough to be able to build and
maintain packages in a semi-official binary repository, which every
user trusts.

I also read his comment in the forums, which Xyne posted here.

Well the "Welcome to the forum" can be seen friendly. But then he
writes "We must realize whether...", and just repeats, what Allan has
already written. For me it sounds as he feels like already being a
developer, or that he wants to presume to be one. I don't know Laszlo's
intention, and I can do him wrong, but somehow it looks like craving
for recognition, there are at least doubts.

So I don't know, if I could trust him enough.

I'd suggest, not to make him a TU. I think there are enough things, he
can do for Arch Linux and the community without being a TU. If he will
prove beyond doubt in the future, that his attitude is good, his
scripting and packaging skills are even better, and he is really
trustworthy, then this can be discussed again and it can be voted again
about making him a TU, but not too early. I think, there's no hurry.

Heiko