[pacman-dev] Package signing in pacman

[ari edelkind]

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 05:02, Rémy Oudompheng wrote:
> You seem to be complaining about lack of documentation in pacman's
> source code. Tha answer is probably that no, we are not really
> motivated to write documentation, and the reason is very simple.
> Nobody in the current contributors has time to do that. The API is
> documented, which is at least nice. This is no disrespect in any way.
> Writing proper documentation requires work. Trying to attract new
> contributors requires work too.

Agreed, it does.  My point was that if you make contributing
unattractive, then a blanket response of, "You want it?  You write
it," becomes little more than a brush-off.  If contributing is easy,
then it's an invitation.  What's more, since developers always like
their work to be appreciated, once a person does begin contributing,
he's likely to contribute more later.  The biggest problem is, he has
to get over that initial hurdle and learning curve, and if it looks
daunting, he's more likely to consider it a waste of time, and less
likely to start.

My goals were as follows:
  - Get people to recognize the problem.
  - Inspire _one_ of the following:
    1. Creation of documentation that makes starting to contribute
less _work_ and more productive.
    2. Cessation of blanket "If you want it, write a patch" statements.

If [1] happens, then the issue of [2] is okay.  If [2] happens, then
the lack of [1] is no longer disrespectful.

I'm encouraged that people seem to have recognized the problem, and
are putting forth effort to make [1] a reality.

ari