Patches & Modules - Questions and your Opinion?

[Kok, Auke]

Jean-Michel Brünn wrote:
> Hello,

Ok, I deleted the entire discussion below since it's demonstrating exactly what my
point is.

First of all, YOU as the developer have to decide if it's worth to put patches in
for a module. I have given some guidelines in my reply to show you that your
investment may be not a good one if you invest too much and do not get any return
from that investment.

	profit = return - investment

Distro work is really not about making the world better. We're not zen bhuddists
trying to save every bug in the dirt. We're just here to provide something that
works (TM) to the users in a way that makes sense, is non-fragile and gets the job
done.

Putting in patches quite often does not improve on that work: Patches become
outdated fast and need to be respun for sometimes every release. Also patches are
hard to find and even harder to distribute since they're not officially released
products, just a mere temporary thought of someone to improve upon a certain
situation.

	investment = high

Then most of the patches that we see do not have a high return yield. they fix
something obscure that we don't care about (graphical grub boot splash anyone?) or
really really don't need (who's running lunar on s390? I dare ya!).

	return = none

the end result of the equation is simple:

	profit = -high

IOW a waste of time.

so, back to my original point.

YOU decide whether this equation evaluates to something POSITIVE for a patch that
you need or want or think people need. If YOU think that it is worth YOUR time to
send (and KEEP SENDING UPDATES to) patches for a module to accomplish something,
then that is perfectly fine and acceptable.

every developer has to think this over when he creates something to add to lunar.
If it is worth both *his* time and he deems it valuable to the lunar users (maybe
not all, but definately a few other then himself) then the equation evaluates to
favorable and ... it works. This is a developers responsability.


so, whatever you think you want to add, consider the above equation and if you are
unsure on how it evaluates, then ask on the list for other opinions.

Cheers,

Auke