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Re: Changes to RPM area on web site.

From: David Summers <david_at_summersoft.fay.ar.us>
Date: 2004-11-30 02:38:54 CET

On 29 Nov 2004 kfogel@collab.net wrote:

> David, I don't know if you saw the question at the end of this post,
> so I'm resending it with a more eye-catching subject line. The
> original subject was:
>
> "Re: Is subversion safe to use?"
>
> -Karl
>
> kfogel@collab.net writes:
> > Ben Collins-Sussman <sussman@collab.net> writes:
> > > Okay, so maxb's analysis is that David Summers' svn 1.1 RPMS were
> > > statically linking against BDB 4.0, but the user's previous 1.0.9 RPMs
> > > (whereever they came from) were statically linking against BDB 4.2...
> > >
> > > This makes me ponder two different things:
> > >
> > > 1. Maybe package maintainers should clearly label (or even warn) which
> > > version of of BDB they're using, since changing BDB versions can so
> > > easily wreak havoc on unsuspecting users?
> >
> > That would probably help.
> >
> > > 2. a separate question -- and this is nothing against David or any
> > > other packager -- I wonder if our downloads page shouldn't make it
> > > really, really clear that
> > >
> > > A. the Subversion project only "officially" tests and releases
> > > sourceballs
> > > B. every link we provide is to volunteer-produced packages.
> > >
> > > This is on my mind lately, because whenever someone has a problem with
> > > a binary package (for any OS) the first thing they say is, "but I'm
> > > using the official package from the Subversion site!" There's this
> > > common misunderstanding that keeps coming up. A lot of users think
> > > that if they follow and install those links, then nothing can possibly
> > > go wrong because they've all been thoroughly tested and blessed. We
> > > need to make it clear that we're providing those links merely as a
> > > convenience, don't you think?
> >
> > At first, I thought this sounded like a good idea. But the more I
> > thought about it, the less comfortable I became.
> >
> > The Subversion project as a whole has been benefiting from David's and
> > other packager's work. Why should we suddenly pretend we're strangers
> > when the occasional problem crops up?
> >
> > "What, RPMs? Never heard of 'em. Some sort of packaging system,
> > is it? Well, we've got nothing to do with it..."
> >
> > I'm being facetious, of course :-), but only partly.
> >
> > With or without the proposed disclaimer, we're not going to behave any
> > differently. When people come into our lists and IRC channels with a
> > problem, we're going to try and help them. If we loudly proclaim that
> > these packages aren't "blessed", what will that really mean? What
> > will it gain anyone? People will still download them, still use them,
> > and when they have problems, they'll still come to the same place.
> >
> > So let's just try to do a better job of labeling the packages and
> > their potential incompatibilities, and when there are problems, we
> > take our lumps and try to solve them.
> >
> > If some package maintainer were to produce consistently unreliable or
> > gratuitously incompatible packages, then we should stop linking to
> > those packages. But so far, that hasn't happened. It certainly
> > didn't happen in this case; all we really have here is a labeling
> > problem, albeit one that bites pretty hard :-).
> >
> > David, would you like to take care of committing the appropriate
> > language to the web pages? You know best what needs to be said
> > regarding upgrades & incompatibilities.

Yes, I'll try to commit something sane here in the next day or so.

  Thanks.

-- 
David Wayne Summers          "Linux: Because reboots are for hardware upgrades!"
david_at_summersoft.fay.ar.us   PGP Key: http://summersoft.fay.ar.us/~david/pgp.txt
PGP Key fingerprint =  C0 E0 4F 50 DD A9 B6 2B  60 A1 31 7E D2 28 6D A8 
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Received on Tue Nov 30 01:40:06 2004

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