[pacman-dev] My $0.02 on the Frugalware v.s. Arch bit...

[Scott Horowitz]

I hate to wade into this, but let me just say... there's no doubt in
my mind that this will never be resolved while the (inflammatory)
sentiment in the pacman-g2 README exists.

For starters, the whole point being made about the API not being
stable, which seems to be points 1 and 2 in the README, are plain
silly. No project should take a project's cvs development code and
expect the API to remain stable; Frugalware knew what it was getting
into when it grabbed this code to put into their repositories. There's
a reason that pacman3 hasn't been released yet on Archlinux, and that
there haven't been Archlinux frontends developed. Pacman3 development
shouldn't be hindered because someone decided to release the code into
the wild, and it's clearly going under some large refactoring.

As for point 3, Aaron's supposed disinterest in contributor's patches
- I think it has been quite clear from the mailing list that this
isn't the case. The real justification behind this sentiment, which
was brought up in the original email and I agree needs improvement, is
that there could use more openness (such as in response to a WONTFIX
patch) between all the parties.

Then there's the stuff about how development has fallen behind
schedule (what project hasn't?) and Aaron asked Frugalware to fork
things (I'm pretty sure this was more tongue-in-cheeck about how
Frugalware is doing things than anything). These seem pretty petty to
me.

In my opinion, two things need to happen, one from each side. On the
Archlinux side, I think Aaron should make a better attempt to be more
transparent in his responses, which would hopefully encourage debate.
On the Frugalware side, I think the whining about API stability needs
to be dropped and, rather than take the "fork" talk as a challenge,
they should be asking what needs to be done to make the two paths more
compatible.

Happy Holidays,
Scott