[CentOS-devel] CentOS-4.4 yumconf

On Sat, 2006-10-14 at 06:59 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-10-11 at 16:22 -0700, C.M. Connelly wrote:
> > "JP" == Jim Perrin <jperrin at gmail.com>
> > <snip>

> > Like, I suspect, most people using CentOS, I'm not paid to work on
> > the OS, and I don't have time to hang out on IRC on the off chance
> > that someone will bring up something that might completely screw
> > up my systems down the road.
> 
> That comment is utterly ridiculous.
<snip the response about how we all work for free: irrelevant>

Your the second (3rd?) responder to miss/ignore the point? I *guess* you
missed it since you launch into a (emotionally inspired?) response that
appears defensive, as well as counter-productive, IMO.

If I may be permitted a guess, based on an impartial reading? Her point
was that her particular situation does not allow her the luxury of
monitoring the IRC stuff as well as the lists. I have that luxury and
choose *not* to monitor multiple sources.

Everybody's situation is different. A *consistency* of process benefits
all. If the discussion occurs on IRC and final decision occurs there, it
does take some effort to make sure that at least a notification appears
on the appropriate list(s). If there is not a formal procedure in place
to assure this occurs, individuals are easily forgiven for overlooking
that step.

But once that sort of failure is identified, there is no forgiveness for
the "organization" if they don't expend at least as much effort in
trying to ensure that the blunder is not repeated as they did telling
the complainants they were wrong because they could have done a or b or
c...

Since there are multiple "victims" (based on posts), it should not be
viewed as an easily-dismissed aberration by one lax user.

As to the movement of the fails, the complaints I recall are not
entirely that they were moved, but that they were moved without any
notification apparent to those particular users. Of course it is not
reasonable for the project to try to anticipate all possible field-
implemented variations that may be affected by any change. But that does
not mean, and you do *not* say/imply, that you should just ignore the
possible damaging effects of changes *Of_which_you_are_aware*.

As one possible solution that rational (I guess that means "non-
engineering" types!  ;-) beings might consider is to require a
notification of change to whatever list is deemed most extensive in
coverage, or even multiple lists,
*when_a_change_has_been_identified_as_having_possible_effect* in the
user community.

If this is beyond the scope of what CentOS hopes to achieve, then a
simple say so would also be considered sufficient by all... I would
*hope*.

MHO
--
Bill