Re: Packages with non-distributable distfiles

[John Marino <netbsd%marino.st@localhost>]

On 5/25/2012 13:29, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
> John Marino<netbsd%marino.st@localhost>  writes:
> > So it broadcasts to the users that pkgsrc quality control sucks,
> > and also invokes Animal Farm ideas where some users are more
> > equal than others.
>
> Yes, some users are more equal than others one way or another,
> not everyone can commit his local changes to the repository.
> If you think that quality control comes with no price, you're mistaken,
> it takes a good deal of resources.

As quickly as possible because I'm sure others are tired of this 
conversation:

- I don't consider commit privilege when talking about users.
- QC comes with a price.  Infrastructure is needed, rules are needed and 
must be enforced.  This sub-project, pkgsrc, has the resources to do 
that, but isn't.  Any criticism about QC by the user is therefore 
justified.  It's really not taxing to identify a bad package and purge 
it, so stating how hard that is isn't going to fly very far.


> > I'm sorry, I'm going to continue to believe that packages that
> > require distfiles that are illegal to obtain have no place in a
> > package system that serves open source operating systems.
>
> You may believe it, but your beliefs should not impede others.
> We're not GNU, and this world still has IP laws. Some software has to be
> bought (licensed) in order to be used, and there's significant number of
> users who don't see anything wrong with it.


I said nothing about IP laws.  I said "illegal to obtain".  That has 
been stated as fact several times.  If you have one of these distfiles, 
you can't legally give it to me.  That's going nothing to do with GNU or IP.


> I don't see the reason why users should suffer from purist views of one
> or few developers.
>
> What you're striving for is completely different from recent move
> towards staged installation as requirement. The latter has clear
> technical advantages, but some packages have to be purged out for it.
> In constrast, your goal is limited to exclusion of packages
> with no other benefit than some kind of stallmanist "freedom."

Calling me a stallmanist is wrong - I'm not pro-GNU or pro-GPL.  If you 
have an distfile, great, use it.  Use it with a copy of the package 
makefiles made by you before they were purged.  What's so difficult 
about that?



> > Right, because based on my commits over the last 6 months,
> > that's all I've been concentrating on.
>
> There're a lot of other things to work on than chasing packages that
> don't work for you personally and shooting them down. Especially,
> when they don't affect anything else.


I think you forgot how the whole things started.  I marked these 
NOT-FOR-DRAGONFLY.  That's it, I was finished.  It was Joerg that put 
forth a policy proposal (a good one).  I support the proposal, but since 
I've actually not seen any proposal ever get implemented, I'm skeptical 
this one will either.  So I spent 3 minutes per package that violates 
*our* policy without affecting anyone else and I moved on to fixing 
those important breakages.  So I'm pleased to inform you that the only 
time I continue to waste on the subject is responding to this thread.



> > I know some might be insulted that I think there are little in
> > the way of "standards" in pkgsrc, but I can't help how I see it.
> > I'm doing my part to raise that, but there's only so much I can
> > do.
>
> Yes, there're a lot of standards. If you expect that everything should
> be fixed and written down, you should look for another world, because
> this one works differently to such expectations.

I deal with standards in my profession.  Strangely, all of them are 
documented and followed.

> In particular, it is expected that new package builds on NetBSD/i386 at
> least, and it is required that a package is distributed in files.
> This alone places a lot of restrictions.

While I agree it's polite that new packages build on NetBSD-i386, and 
I've turned down one that didn't build on NetBSD, there are *plenty* of 
packages that were intended only for NetBSD and have no hope of building 
anywhere else, but the same courtesy needs to be extended to other 
platforms.  Agreed, pkgsrc is hosted by NetBSD and a package *should* 
run on NetBSD if it's technically capable but if its not designed to, 
that shouldn't restrict it from getting into pkgsrc.  So if that's a 
firm restriction without exception, it's a bad one.


> If these were relaxed, I could
> have imported some packages that don't work on NetBSD since 1.1-1.4 days,
> and a number of packages that fetch source from VCS directly.

What do they work on?  Linux?

I don't know, it's a complex subject.  If pkgsrc sells itself as 
universal system, it should have provisions for single platform 
(non-NetBSD) support.  In some cases that single platform could be 
expanded if a developer took interest.

John