[aur-general] Moving packages to Community

[Thomas S Hatch]

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Thomas Dziedzic <gostrc at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Thomas S Hatch <thatch45 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Lukas Fleischer
> > <archlinux at cryptocrack.de>wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, Feb 05, 2011 at 11:45:20AM -0700, Thomas S Hatch wrote:
> >> > Greg, You have a valid point, personally I have always asked the
> >> maintainer
> >> > of a package for objections before moving a package into community. I
> >> also
> >> > want to continue to express my deep gratitude for the packagers who
> >> > contribute to the AUR. They are really the frontline in Arch
> development,
> >> > the blood on the knife's edge.
> >> >
> >> > We as trusted users need to show the devs in the AUR the utmost
> respect
> >> and
> >> > appreciation. I would also like to point out:
> >> > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TU_Person_Specification
> >> > All TUs we should adhere to the first bullet under "At Least" on this
> >> wiki
> >> > entry.
> >> >
> >> > I hope that my fellow TUs agree that we should give AUR contributors
> the
> >> > utmost respect, they deserve it.
> >> >
> >> > A behavior of respect will help us, the TUs, improve Arch, it will
> allow
> >> us
> >> > to bring more people onto the Arch development teams, and continue our
> >> march
> >> > to making Arch greater.
> >>
> >> I personally asked for objections using AUR comments in most cases and
> >> waited some days before moving stuff. Nevertheless, I don't see a huge
> >> problem with just moving stuff. Moving a package to the binary repos
> >> shouldn't be regarded as stealing but as an improvement for the
> >> community. The AUR ain't a place for competitions (like "Which package
> >> has the most votes?" or "Who maintains the coolest packages?") but a
> >> place to provide source packages until a TU/Dev steps up and maintains
> >> the package in [community]/[extra]/[core].
> >>
> >> Still, I'd prefer to have some announcement before moving a package. And
> >> another one just before removing it (so that users being notified about
> >> a package become aware of the move). AUR comments seem to be the
> >> appropriate place for this.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Angel has many good and valid points, I am proud of my contributions to
> open
> > source and to Arch. My willingness to give without the expectation of
> > receiving anything back has given me, personally, much more than I could
> > have expected. Also it is true, that what you submit to the AUR, Arch
> > reserves rights to.
> >
> > But these points should not reduce the fact that a person contributed the
> > package, and even when I have had to completely rewrite a PKGBUILD before
> > moving the package to community I still think that it is important to
> > recognize the maintainer who paved the road.
> >
> > I am going to maintain, that a TU is not to be required to contact the
> AUR
> > maintainer, but it is the courteous thing to do, and that we should
> develop
> > and maintain an atmosphere of respect.
> >
> > To reiterate Lukas, notifications should ALWAYS be placed before deleting
> > AUR packages and moving AUR packages to community. Thats how I would draw
> > the line, posting the comments about moves and deletions should be
> > mandatory, and contacting the maintainer should be a strongly encouraged
> > courtesy.
> >
> > -Thomas  S Hatch
> >
>
> I agree. Even if the packages are part of archlinux, the courteous
> thing to do would be to send an email before moving the packages to
> see if the original maintainer is onboard with it. Though he may not
> own it, he does have a sense of authorship, and that needs to be taken
> into account. We're still dealing with people here :)
>
> -Thomas
>

I want to make sure that no one gets me wrong, I agree with Angel, and I
feel strongly that the technical progress of Arch Linux should in no way be
hampered by political or social barriers.

But often the best way to avoid making political and social barriers is
through respect and courtesy.

As far as I know, the TUs make an effort to show this courtesy and respect.

If an AUR contributor does not feel that they have been treated fairly, then
they should email the TU that adopted the package and KINDLY (we get emails
from crazy people sometimes, and those usually get ignored) let them know
that a notification would have been nice, and ask for the courtesy next
time.

We want to be kind and respectful, but we also want Arch to kick more butt,
and to be quite honest, we TUs probably all care more about Arch kicking
butt, than we care about your feelings. With that said, I think that it is
most likely that contributors care much more about Arch kicking butt than
they do about their own feelings.

We all make mistakes, but as a whole we can put the mistakes aside and work
on the overall betterment of Linux, open source and freedom, isn't that what
this is all about?

-Thomas S Hatch