This is the mail archive of the cygwin-apps@cygwin.com mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: RFD: A modest proposal #2: unsupported


On Fri, Apr 18, 2003 at 08:18:52PM -0400, Charles Wilson wrote:
>3) A strict "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK" policy.  The only appropriate
>discussion of these packages on the main cygwin list is "I think
>package unsupported/foo is cool, and I'd like to adopt it and support
>it, and become its official maintainer." In other words, an adoption
>notice -- to be followed by a formal ITP on cygwin-apps and review for
>"real" inclusion under release/.  However, as long as a package is
>"unsupported" it is UNSUPPORTED.  Don't ask about it on the main
>mailing list.  setup.hints should be category = UNSUPPORTED and nothing
>else.  These packages should ONLY show up in the unsupported category
>in setup's chooser and NOT also under Libraries or Net or whatnot.
>UNSUPPORTED.  PERIOD.  NO questions on the cygwin mailing list.  NO
>questions or personal mail to the contributor.  UNSUPPORTED.  End of
>story.

Who's going to police this?  Me?  Or ten people all responding with
various levels of civility when someone asks a question about an
unsupported package?

You know that we can't really enforce rules like this and without a
maintainer the rule will be anarchy.  When someone notices that the
unsupported "solitaire" package doesn't repaint the screen correctly,
certain recent cygwin mailing list "helpers" will undoubtedly be telling
them to to replace their kernel32.dll with a linux libc.so or something.
And, we'll be getting "I know that it's unsupported but I think the
answer is that you have to reinstall X", etc.  from the more clueful
respondents.  Over time, knowledge of what's supported and not supported
will drift and the more stable unsupported packages will be inadvertently
relied on by supported packages.

Pragmatically speaking, this is what will happen.  I'm not even going
to add an IMO, since I think that all of this is a 100% certainty.

So, count me as not liking this idea.  Sorry, Chuck.

cgf


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]