[Mageia-discuss] Suggestions

[David W. Hodgins]

On Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:52:01 -0400, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:

> The patch arguent is invalid, because people can also send mail, like
> "here is a better description of package $FOO because I didn't
> understood the current one and I wanted to help".

Take a look at https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=45605

I am not a c programmer, but due to my background, working with
mainframes, and what I have learned on my own, I can sometimes
figure out not only what the problem is, but how to fix it.

I don't know anything about patch files, or the relationship
between packagers, and developers within Mandriva. I was quite
surprised by Matthias's response.  From the context, I gather
Matthias, is the upstream developer, and Pacho was the Mandriva
packager, but given the the fact Mandriva is a company, that
appeared to be annoying the actual developer, I chose not to
follow up on the bug. The bug is still there in 2010.1, so I
use my own version, that contains the fix I suggested.

My personality is such that I actually derive pleasure from
solving problems.  I hate getting involved in company style
"politics", so I became self employed, prior to retiring,
and only worked on a contract basis, to solve that problem.

Even with my background, I did not feel comfortable making
suggestions (for what I expect the developer/packager would
consider cosmetic changes), to things like package descriptions.
I know how to search to find the packages, that will do what
I want, even if the descriptions in the rpm package are not
well written, but most users don't have that ability.

Yes, people can send email, or file bug reports, if they can figure
out who to send them to, and felt the feedback would be appreciated.
Most people will not.  Without a better understanding of who actually
writes the descriptions in the packages, I would not either.

I'm hoping Mageia will make it easier for people like myself
to not only contact the developer/packager, but also make it
feel like such contact is desired.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

Regards, Dave Hodgins