On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 10:00:49AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > Christian> Debian has many maintainers who cannot programm or like me > Christian> can programm perl and php (well enough to get paid for) it > Christian> but have not much experience with C. > Christian> Those people can do nothing about a c++ security fix > Christian> except crying out loud for help. (that came quickly by > Christian> better maintainers) > Christian> You (plural, not you personally) can fire "us" or see that > Christian> we're a well copntribution to the project. > > If the maintainer does not know C/C++, then they really have > no business packaging a C/C++ programme. Debian is supposed to be > more than a repository of everything out there (or a cool email > address). It is also supposed to be about quality. If you do not > understand the language your package is written in, it is highly > unlikely your stewardship of that package is goging to be anything > but mediocre.
You're right in the general case, but I believe Christian was referring to being unable to backport a security patch in mysql. Just "knowing" a language wouldn't quite be sufficient to be able to do that. He did the right thing by asking for help -- that's hell of a lot better than ignoring the problem or doing the job lousy. (Both of which aren't unheard of, unfortunately.) -- Digital Electronic Being Intended for Assassination and Nullification