For people on this list do Y’all think this should be an announcement or a forum post only? And should this go up ASAP or wait for actual name change in ABF. FWIW I think it should go up immediately and a separate announcement should be make when the actual ABF name change happens.
Policy for contrib/unsupported repositories is and always has been “You install it, your responsibility”. Or in other words, “Caveat emptor”.
That does not mean user can’t get help but it does mean OM devs are not obligated to help, especially not to drop what they are doing to help.
In yesterday’s TC-meeting we voted to rename contrib repo to unsupported. This is partly because we simply have not been able to get users to understand that OM developers have no responsibility to maintain packages in contrib.
There has been a strong effort to move packages from contrib/unsupported to main or from main to contrib/unsupported depending on necessity or desirability of each package. Users are encouraged to make suggestions in this regard. This is also being done so that for OM Lx 4.0 contrib/unsupported repo in not enabled by default and is not needed for a very well working and functional system.
Note:Many users have no idea of the volume of work done weekly by OM developers or how often one or more of them do drop what they are doing to help users with problems like “black screen” or whatever else.
I’d extend a bit more this point, like adding something along the lines of:
– If you usually install a package from contrib/unsupported repository and find that currently it is properly working you are more than welcome to recommend it to us, as most likely it will be moved to /main;
– If you usually install a package from contrib/unsupported repository, you find that it is very close to current release version (please always check the project homepage and the source download) and you know for sure it worked until some time ago but at this time got some issues, then make an update request. In such a case please be ready to support the developers willing to take the task with testing;
– If you find a package in /main repository, currently obsoleted by a new more efficient one which may be a good replacement, then let us know (please provide a brief description, the project homepage and if possible the source download link) Postedit Maybe the same could work for contrib/unsupported…
. This is what came to my mind at the first thought, may need to add or reword (or to discuss or also to reject)
+1. It will really help to understand which packages are really needed. We don’t have enough resources to maintain the whole contrib, but it should be not hard to move a dozen (or even several dozen) of packages to main if they are really used.
I am not sure unsupported is the best name, it sound as abandoned. I suggest community instead. In such way people are not official developer but need some extra packages keep responsibility of the packages they build there. As an alternative a simple way to add personal repositories hosted at abf-downloads could be provideed an cold be used as a replacement of contrib/unsipported repository.
We want to change the repository name also because contrib (like community) does not make much sense today where we all are the Community and/or Contributors…
Good points made, thanks to all. I will rewrite something soonish unless someone beats me to it. It may take some time before anything changes in ABF. And we can hope there are no “unintended consequences” of a name change but there will be. So we need to be prepared for testing, fixing, breakage, ect. until things get sorted.
This may also be a good time to encourage users to learn packaging basics, like how to update a package themselves – often it’s as simple as bumping the Version: number in the spec file…
Especially in contrib/unsupported, it would be great if people could actually try doing something simple themselves. We can always help if it comes down to something more complicated like rebasing a patch…
Yes, I should do this myself. If there are things about packaging that are easy I certainly did not know it. And if there are then I should be contributing in this.
