[aur-general] Deletion of sxiv-cdown-git

[Eli Schwartz]

On 9/13/20 6:44 AM, Chris Down wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> It seems this morning sxiv-cdown-git was deleted. It exists as a (small)
> fork from sxiv with features geared towards using it as a photo manager
> which Bert has indicated are different from his goals in mainline, not
> merely a set of config options or whatever. I assume Eli deleted it
> because he thought it's a one-person package, but it has multiple users.
> 
> I assume it was removed on this basis due to the name:
> 
>> Make sure the package you want to upload is useful. Will anyone else
>> want to use this package? Is it extremely specialized? If more than a
>> few people would find this package useful, it is appropriate for
>> submission.
> 
> ...but it is acutually used by a number of people (I know, because I
> have others in my photography group who use it).
> 
> Eli, on that basis, would you kindly consider restoring it? I'm happy to
> rename it sxiv-photomanager-git, or whatever else.

I deleted it at the same time as a couple of other sxiv derivative
PKGBUILDs. It is possible I was hasty in the process.

> I'm also a bit concerned about the predecent set for other packages
> which happen to bear my name, if that's the criteria for removal. For
> example, I have `systemd-cdown-git`, which is what I use when people
> report systemd problems to me and I write and ask them to try out some
> patches, so it's definitely used by more than a few people, albeit
> sporadically. Sure, I could just send PKGBUILDs and .install files
> around, but this seems reasonable to have on the AUR since it means I
> can just tell them the package to install, and things Just Work(tm). 
> That strategy has been very successful in the past. If the naming is
> part of the rationale for removal, any suggestion for that one?

In principle this is something I'm not comfortable saying "I, Eli,
refuse to allow this".

In practice, there are two general issues with "foo-${username}" packages:

- invariably they tend to to be low quality and not really interesting
  to multiple people [1]
- their method of advertising (a username) might not obviously convey
  why they are sufficiently useful

I'd like to specifically focus on the first of these issues. sxiv is
suckless.org software with the well-known building pattern of "each user
is supposed to provide their own config.h in order to perform
user-specific configuration". I feel like we probably don't need lots of
forked versions for this. These projects also have various patches which
it seems like every user picks and chooses between in order to obtain a
very specific respin of the software. Which they then name with their
name. "<person>'s customizations for XXX"

This is *really common* for suckless.org software, as far as I can tell.
It's confusing, and gives the impression every suckless.org forked
package is just there to bundle one user's personal config.h to taste.

... I realize at this time we do also currently have 20 different forks
of dwm in the AUR. Which ones are actually used by people other than the
uploader? Well, at least a couple of them tell people why this fork is
useful. "dwm-keycodes" "dwm-hidpi"
What do the other ones do, even?

Perhaps there should be a general discussion about how to handle the
proliferation of suckless.org software forks, and what constitutes
uniqueness.

In the meantime, it seems like I may have made a mistake in deleting
your sxiv derivation. Renaming it to sxiv-photomanager-git sounds like a
good way to avoid future confusion, at least. :) Either way, consider me
to have withdrawn my objection to your package; you may feel free to
re-upload it.

...

On the topic of systemd-cdown-git, as an upstream systemd member
providing this as a method of helping people test your patches, I
suppose I better understand both the package and its use of your
username. But maybe you could make a note of that in the pkgdesc, e.g.

+="(cdown's integration testing branch)"

And maybe a pinned comment going into detail about why users should
consider using it. More knowledge never *hurts*.


[1] https://github.com/muennich/sxiv/compare/master...BachoSeven:master
https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-requests/2020-September/044316.html

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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