On Tue, Mar 06, 2012 at 04:27:56PM +0100, Marcela Mašláňová wrote:
Hello list, could we start with the discussion about the packaging guidelines for Ruby once again? The discussion is very long and I guess everyone is now lost in too many details.
I'd like to propose going over the whole guidelines, from a paragraph to a paragraph, so it is clear what is okay and what is not and why. From previous emails it looks like the discussion stalled and arguments are only repeated over and over.
I believe whole Ruby SIG agreed on the guidelines. Would it help if more people from SIG participate in this debate? Or would it be more specific examples helpful?
Specific examples of what's broken by the proposal I've advanced will help.
I'll have time to work on the guidelines after March 16th -- going to a conference in the next few hours.
Ruby is not like Perl or Python. It has its own specific ways. Upstreams are usually not happy, when distribution change those specifics too much. Some packages are hard to package into rpm and we need to do some hacks around, which bring more comfort to packagers.
The first statement you make here is not true. Ruby is like Python and Php and Java and Perl and OCaml and etc in these ways. Upstream communities always have their ways of doing things that don't mesh with how software should be packaged in a Linux distro. It's the job of the packaging committee, packagers, and package reviewers to make packages that follow best practices for a distro while living within the constraints imposed by upstream software's technology and systems.
-Toshio