Last warning don't modify my packages!!!

[Kevin Fenzi]

>>>>> "Brandon" == Brandon Holbrook <fedora at theholbrooks.org> writes:

Brandon> Christopher Stone wrote:
>> On 10/12/06, Warren Togami <wtogami at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am seriously tempted to just modify Frank's package so he will
>> quit Fedora.  Perhaps we will be better off.  LOL! ;-)
Brandon> I'm sure there are plenty of others (including myself) who
Brandon> had the same thought.  Thorsten's written a few times lately
Brandon> about his ideal of getting rid of this kind of attitude from
Brandon> package maintainers and I completely agree.  As a relatively
Brandon> new member, I can attest that this foreboding
Brandon> 'others-need-not-apply' attitude discourages involvement and
Brandon> more importantly the spirit of a community.  I'd much rather
Brandon> see maintainers take the attitude that many have expressed in
Brandon> this thread: "if you need to change something of mine, feel
Brandon> free"

Brandon> Granted, package maintainers (usually) went to all the work
Brandon> of getting their package up-to-snuff for approval and
Brandon> continually monitor upstream's mailing lists and
Brandon> announcements to stay current, and the feeling of ownership
Brandon> and pride is what keeps most of us interested in software in
Brandon> the first place.  But keep in mind, this is all Open Source
Brandon> Software, and more than that this is Fedora, whose sole
Brandon> existence is based around _community_ involvement, not
Brandon> individuals who happen to be in the same CVS repository.

Not to drag this thread out too much longer, but I would like to toss
my 2c in as well...

I think the change that sparked this thread was good and proper.
The maintainer didn't answer a bugzilla query and there were issues
that needed to be addressed. Thats fine.

I would ask however that people do try and contact the maintainer of a
package before just diving in and changing things. There could well be
good reasons you are not aware of for the change that you are about to
do not being a good idea, ie:

- You decide you want to upgrade to the latest version of a package,
but the maintainer who follows the upstream list knows this version
has serious problems and is waiting for a fixed version.

- Your change might break another package that the maintainer knows
depends on his package, but you don't realize that.

- The change you want to make is minor, and the maintainer is just
waiting for some other change to push out a new version.

etc...

So please email/irc/file bugzilla bug before making changes in others
packages.

For the record I have no problems with people applying changes to my
packages as long as they do so in a sane manner and give me a heads
up. ;)

Just IMHO.

kevin
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