Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again

2002-04-17 Thread Lasse Karkkainen
 That's the result of reading your (=Debian developers') rude replies 
 to very polite questions asked by other people.
 If you claim that your first post was polite I am truly amazed. It was
 a very rude and very clueless attack against Branden. You owe him an
 apology.

My message was not meant to be polite. Instead its purpose was to shake
people a bit (and it succeeded). Those polite questions with rude
answers I was referring to can be easily found with a quick search on
Google, if anyone cares.
After silently reading those for several months, I just wouldn't want to 
go there and post another polite question.

What I didn't know when posting that was that you are trying to release
Woody very soon. It is acceptable that, at such phase, all time is
temporarily (for couple of weeks) devoted for it.
The message I manually forwarded to the list.. while Mozilla was sending
it, I noticed that the CC to list was missing and thought that the
reason was me accidentally hitting Reply (instead of Reply All). I
apologize.
Some people said that I'm not contributing. I don't know if they meant
Debian or open-source in general. In case of the former, they are right.
I'm a human with limited resources.
 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.8)
 Why doesn't that surprise me?
Because you know that my hardware doesn't work in Debian and I have to
use W98? I realized too late that it was a mistake to get rid of that
Matrox G400.
 Do you know how to operate CVS and get your OWN copy of 4.2?
LOL. As if I didn't use CVS daily for developement and as if I hadn't 
co'ed CVS-versions of XF few weeks before 4.2.0 was released (and 
several times after that too), to get the hardware support. Every 
version refused to compile here though.

I am not going to apologize anything from Branden - I said that he 
doesn't have enough time that doesn't seem like an insult to me. I also 
understand why 4.2.0 won't go in Woody (and I don't care: I can always 
use those unstable (or experimental) versions).

Anyway, no need to add my address to your mail filters - this will be my
last post about this topic, on this list. Now that I have surely awaken
you, it's better not waste time flaming here, while you could be
fine-tuning Woody.
Thanks for the greatest distro (if it wasn't the greatest, I wouldn't 
even write to this list: a little dilemma for you;).

- Tronic -

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XFree 4.2.0 - again

2002-04-15 Thread Lasse Karkkainen
Hi!   (it's my first post here)
You are probably sick and tired of this topic, but ...
IT'S A QUARTER YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF 4.2.0 RELEASE!
Yes, it really has been three (3) months (!) since it was released.
Time to throw some gasoline on the flames ... Branden apparently is 
incapable of releasing it. So, I suggest that anyone, with enough 
knowledge and TIME, reading this, would volunteer as XFree package 
maintainer. Branden's comments suggest that he just doesn't have enough 
time for that.

Before you all start flaming and bashing me..
No, I am NOT willing to prepare and release that package. I know next to 
nothing about Debian internals, and I don't have enough time either 
(with my other projects and a dayjob). Anyway THIS IS NO REASON for me 
to shut the fuck up (to quote Branden's welcome-pic, which I have been 
weekly refreshing for couple of months now). I am just saying what other 
developers don't dare to say, as it might damage and rip apart their 
magic castle. This risk must be taken, or Debian may die anyhow.

Of course, if no-one else is capable of maintaining that package, Debian 
is in trouble. In that case I suggest hiring a paid programmer for the 
job (if that should happen, I am willing to donate). XF is way too 
essential component to be ignored like this. Anyway, no-one will 
volunteer as long as Branden is officially working on it, so I suggest 
that the first thing to do is getting rid of him. He can freely continue 
working with smaller projects, but XF is way too big for him, with his 
limited resources (time).

Another solution *I* (yes, my opinion only) could accept would be 
Branden re-evaluating his values, devoting more time for Debian. As a 
proof of that he should release 4.2.0 in one week (the deadline would be 
2002-04-23) and make sure that new releases also get deb'ed in time. Yet 
another option, of course, would be Branden directly naming his successor.

Now you can start bashing me.
- Tronic -
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Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again

2002-04-15 Thread Lasse Karkkainen
Someone said that X is a difficult package to maintain and that there is 
nothing wrong if PACKAGING it takes 3+ months. People have managed to 
install it from sources in matter of HOURS (well, that didn't work for 
me, dunno why). Based on that packaging it during a single weekend 
should be possible. As we are talking about UNSTABLE here, no real 
testing needs to be done before releasing - that's what the Debian 
Unstable is for, right?

4.2.0 doesn't matter, as it's not going into Woody; what needs to be
done on the X packages is getting the highest quality packages X
packages for Woody, which he is doing just fine.
Well, it seems that you almost need 4.2.0 for Woody anyway, if it is 
going to work with any recent hardware (unless you are aiming for 
servers only). Or are you going to hack 4.2.0 display drivers into 4.1.0?

This is about the rudest message I've seen on this mailing list in a
That's the result of reading your (=Debian developers') rude replies to 
very polite questions asked by other people.

while. I have too much stuff to do to actually help Debian, but I'm
willing to order around volunteers. Part of the reason Branden is the X
maintainer, is because X is possibly the hardest package in Debian to
maintain, and Branden is willing and able to do a job most of the rest
of us couldn't or wouldn't.
I have seen that same model happening in many places (trustees of 
associations, software developers, ..). Everybody thinks that someone is 
vital for what he is doing and no-one is willing to replace him... Well, 
then someone else comes and questions that - and gets lots of flame. 
Often that still, finally, leads to replacing that person with a new, 
fresh one. Usually the change is for the good, after all. People who 
have done something for ages just don't care about it anymore, but new 
people are willing to devote all their time for it..

- Tronic -
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Re: XFree 4.2.0 - again

2002-04-15 Thread Lasse Karkkainen
Forgot to cc this to the list.. The message is attached.
---BeginMessage---
I think your case would be more convincing if you mentioned some
particular reason why Debian ought to upgrade.  Presumably it supports
more cards or something.  Having the current version is not super
important in and of itself.
It's the hardware support. People are getting sick of VGA/VESA. I 
thought that it would be obvious.

I think Debian should put all its resources right at the moment into a
freeze first of all.
So, Debian has a fixed number of developers, all working at 100%? I 
thought that it was fuzzy number of developers working when they feel 
like they are able and want to code (which is what free software is all 
about, IMO).

Nobody is stopping you building your own version of XF86 4.2 debs and
putting them up on a web page, or encouraging/paying other people to
I guess you didn't read my original message: the problem is that I know 
next to nothing about Debian.

 do so.  Mere assertion that other people could do a better job than
 Branden is not very persuasive.
Maybe not *better* job, but they could do it *now* .. Also, if Branden 
is working on 4.1.0, why doesn't someone else do 4.2.0? Sounds like two 
separate projects to me.

What comes to encouraging other people - guess what I'm doing right now.
At reasonable rates, I would expect it to cost at least USD1,
possibly a lot more, to build and test a reasonable combination of
platforms and systems.
I believe Unstable (or even Testing) is for testing and there surely 
are people willing to test it. Putting it together so that it runs on 
i386 really shouldn't be a big problem for any Debian developer.

Other platforms aren't nearly as significant as i386 (not many users, no 
much new hardware).

So what if he names you?
Then I'll be spending lot of time in the local library, trying to learn 
how *nix/Debian work, and the release will take forever. Bad choice, really.

Surely this is a troll?
Nope, I'm for real. Maybe a bit provocative, but for real.
- Tronic -
---End Message---