Fedora Extras is extra

[William M. Quarles]

Matthew Miller wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 11:44:26AM -1000, Chris Stark wrote:
> 
>>I think I have to agree with Mr. Quarles on this one. I don't like the 
>>tone of their page. If Fedora Core is supposed to be a community 
>>project, there should not be a centralized QA process for "acceptible" 
>>packages. The community will decide what works by process of natural 
>>selection.
> 
> Natural selection doesn't work that way. I'll go for a more, um, punctuated
> equilibrium approach. Throwing all the repositories together into chaos and
> hoping it all works just isn't going to be any good.

Matthe hat's not we are suggesting.  You are replying to our statements 
out of context. Later on in Chris' same message he does suggest a more 
mature approach, as did I.  You jumped on me for "not having any 
suggestions" when I clearly had made suggestions.  Calm down the 
impulsivity and have a more open mind, please.

>>probably the appropraite thing to do). But undermining other repos by 
>>using conflicting naming systems IS "Microsoft-ish" (and thus utterly 
>>reprehensible) and they should be ashamed of themselves.
> 
> Where does it say that FE is planning on using a "conflicting naming
> system"? (Not on the linked-to fedora.us page....)

I know nothing about that.

>>If fedora.us wants to start including packages that are already 
>>available from FreshRPMs, Dag, etc., they should work with these other 
>>repositories' maintainers and contributors. Linux is about 
>>collaboration. By trying to assert dominance and control over the 
>>community development process, they're only going to alienate users and 
>>developers.
> 
> There *isn't* a community development process yet. But it's still promised
> as "really just around the corner real soon now", and I'm willing to wait a
> little bit longer. There _has_ to be some centralized quality control, just
> to make sure everything can coexist properly. Mini-repositories operating in
> a vacuum are, as the page says, inevitably going to have clashes.

Fedora Extras was supposed to be a community project from the beginning. 
  It did not come from Red Hat like Fedora Core did.  There should be a 
community on Fedora Extras now.  And if this is a respected part of the 
Fedora Project, I am sure having a hard time finding the link from 
fedora.redhat.com to fedora.us.  The only way that I ever found out 
about Fedora Extras was through this mailing list.

Several of the other repositories of which we speak are far from "mini." 
  They have been around longer and are still more popular than Fedora 
Extras.  Some have more packages.  Most have much better designed and 
more sophisticated websites.

Also, some include packages (like the ever-popular Xine) that were once 
part of Red Hat Linux but were dropped in the transition to Fedora Core. 
  For some reason those packages never made it into Fedora Extras.  As 
an aside, why are we still avoiding MPEG technologies in The Fedora 
Project, especially when it is not a product that is bought and sold? 
The courts already upheld the right of open source development and 
distribution of independently developed MPEG software.

> (This is why DAG, FreshRPMS, et al. are also working on coordinating more
> closely, which is _also_ a very good thing.)

And why can't Fedora Extras participate in that same process like we 
were suggesting?  Oh, I forgot, they're still trying to act like Microsoft.

>>I've removed them from my repo list just out of principle.
> 
> Heh. Have fun with that.

He's got plenty of worthwhile options to choose from.

----
Peace,
William