Re: PATCH: cdrecord: avoiding scsi device numbering for ide devices

From: Jan-Benedict Glaw
Date: Tue Aug 10 2004 - 11:22:56 EST


On Tue, 2004-08-10 17:48:14 +0200, Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote in message <20040810174814.414c8fdd.skraw@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:24:59 +0200
> Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > IIRC Jörg complained some hundred emails ago that they (the SuSE people)
> > don't care to try to get their patches upstream, back to Jörg, or
> > discussing their changes with him (but instead hacking cdrecord the way
> > it fits best for them).
>
> Have you followed this thread? I can very well imagine what kind of a mess it
> may be to get a patch accepted "upstream".
> In fact I would have dropped this idea, too.

Yes, I've read this whole thread. ...and I know, too, what amount of
hard work is required to get patches upstream. It's a *lot* more work
than needed to actually implement the chance beforehand.

> > While they (and any other distro's people and anybody else) may actually
> > hack the code to no end, I consider it being good habit to actually
> > *avoid* forking without the intent to (constantly) work in re-merging
> > the fork. While this is perfectly legal, I can understand that Jörg
> > (even while using a broken email client 8-) doesn't like getting
> > complains about a hacked cdrecord, or missing useful changes the
> > distribution people did to cdrecord...
>
> Sometimes forking is unavoidable and necessary. On Joergs side things are
> pretty easy. All he has to tell the people is that according to the version
> spec they sent he refuses to help them, because they use a forked version.
> The true story behind may be that nobody wants to use his version for certain
> pecularities and that therefore merely no feedback is reaching him (any more).

Get real. Most people actually *use* distros, and many of them actually
*fail* to put the bugs into the distro's BTS. Instead, the author (or
whomever they think is the author) is written to. And guess? And I can
well imaging that Jörg doesn't like getting complains about hacked
cdrecord versions because people fail to *read* that this isn't a "pure"
incarnation.

> > So what's commercial distro's primary goal? (1) Re-packaging
> > software for the sole purpose of earning some $$ or (2) acting as
> > a mediator between upstream authors and their paying customers?
> >
> > If it is all about (1), I for one would consider (at least for my future
> > work) to not continue without actually *forcing* vendors into discussing
> > their useful changes with me as an upstream author. Like working IN but
> > not solely FOR a community...
>
> Don't try to press politics onto distros. See what they really are: companies.
> All companies want to earn bucks, that's what they are for.
> If you don't like that, use debian. You got the choice, that's the fine part
> about it.

Actually, I use Debian since, um, long ago:) But accept that Jörg
doesn't really like to care about f*cked up patched versions of
cdrecord. And right, that's a completely different topic compared to
possible bugs/non-documented APIs etc. Jörg is complaining about.

MfG, JBG

--
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