[aur-general] TU application: Laszlo Papp

[Laszlo Papp]

On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Heiko Baums <lists at baums-on-web.de> wrote:

> 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.
>

I've tried to clean some doubts, you can read back.
I think it's normal in the descussion period, if something is not clear, we
speak about
it. Feel free to ask me, if you have got doubts.


> 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.
>

I can't do it with 300 packages really, I discussed it. I've done the
reassessment.
Well I accept the opinion from Xyne, It's not a bad thing to contribute
packages, even
if the user will disown that, because somebody can continue to maintain it,
and you
can reach those now too from AUR.


>
> 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.


You can ask Corrado/bardo in this matter, I've worked with him together on
gcc-avr
packages, and it wasn't quite trivial/simple to keep it in updated format.
We worked
on it more days.
I adopted some unclean packages that lasted me so much hours to fix, because
they
weren't so trivial for me. E.g. packages with kde3/kde4/qt3/qt4
compatibility problem,
or cross-compiling packages with cross-toolchain.
Yeah I've used revdep-rebuild while sleeping or working on other machine,
because it
was a long operation by me ;)


>
> 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.


Okay, in this concrete example it wasn't sure for me he uses a good mirror,
it could
cause the issue too, that was my plus idea. I don't feel really that, I'm a
developer.
I don't like Role-playing game :)


>
> 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
>


Thank you the reply.

Best Regards,
Laszlo Papp