[CentOS] Dag's comment at linuxtag

Mon Jun 29 19:13:33 UTC 2009
Ron Loftin <reloftin at twcny.rr.com>

While I don't want to just add noise to this thread, I think that there
might be some miscommunication and/or misunderstanding involved here.  I
also want to express my appreciation to Dag and the folks who maintain
the RPMforge repo, as I find it quite useful.

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 20:34 +0200, Dag Wieers wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Radu-Cristian FOTESCU wrote:
> 
> >
> >> A quick look at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=centos
> >> shows that a great majority of the packages are not even
> >> close to being "up-to-date", and that is a good thing for
> >> those us of who care more about stability than eyecandy.
> >
> > That can't be other way. For instance, you can't build GIMP 2.4 or 2.6
> > unless you you upgrade to a newer GTK+, which would impact on a lot of
> > apps.
> >

The impression I get from the above exchange is that someone either has
not read the CentOS mission statement, or does not understand it in the
context of "enterprise" and "stable" distribution.  This leads to
dissatisfaction with their installations, since one of the costs of
long-term stability is loss of the capability to upgrade package
versions in a piecemeal manner.

> > OTOH, Dag is in a funny position: he's the main maintainer of RPMforge,
> > which has 2 main issues:
> > (1) It's broken, at least partially. Try install audacious for one.
> > (2) It's incompatible with EPEL. Try install MPlayer and VLC with EPEL
> > enabled.

These observations, while technically correct, show a lack of
familiarity with the long-running differences of opinion between the
RPMforge folks and the EPEL crew.  Again, in the technical/factual
universe, I support Dag's response below, but in the political/emotional
world, I hope that this is not indicating a bump up against the limits
of his patience with these conflicting viewpoints.

> 
>   (1) I expect now patches from you to make a workable audacious based on
>       our audacious package. Apparently you have the interest and the time
>       to do it ?
> 
>   (2) No, they are not compatible, we know. Share to help with this too ?
>       You first have to convince the Fedora people that they will not
>       introduce new incompatibilities before starting. I'd right merge, but
>       also that is not happening as there is no interest. So what is the
>       solution ? Shall I simply stop doing RPMforge ?

Here I will speak for myself, while hoping that there are others who
will agree:

HELL NO !!!

I'm not enough of a programmer to even THINK of replacing the talent you
bring to the table, and I suspect that there are relatively few people
who DO posses those skills who would also have the dedication you do.  I
will say it if nobody else will:  The distros supported by RPMforge
would be poorer without your efforts.

> 
> Is that the position you prefer to force me into ? Because I certainly did 
> not force you into using the repository.

On the lighter side:  If you HAD forced anyone to use the repository, I
suspect that you would have forced them to read the relevant docs
( HOWTOs, etc. ) FIRST. ;>

> 
> I don't know even why you want to use RPMforge, there must be something 
> that is missing from EPEL ?
> 
> I am happy to learn what you want to do though, because it is easy to 
> criticize, but it takes time to do some work.
> 
> (And I hope the solution is not another repository, because we have been 
> there :-))
> 
-- 
Ron Loftin                      reloftin at twcny.rr.com

"God, root, what is difference ?"       Piter from UserFriendly