[Mageia-dev] Minimal patching vs. fixing the whole Universe

[John Balcaen]

2011/6/22 Radu-Cristian FOTESCU <beranger5ca at yahoo.ca>:
> I'm known to be grumpy and difficult, but I also believe in simplicity as a policy, therefore I'd like to ask you something.
>
> By no means I want to question Ahmad's judgment, however I strongly disagree with him on one point. As a _principle_. Otherwise, it's a tiny punctual question, but I'd like to know Mageia's patching _policy_.
>
> See comments 50 and downwards:
>
> https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1659#c50
>
> calibre-python2-env-fix.patch replaces
> '/usr/bin/env python2'
> with
> '/usr/bin/env python'
>
> The calibre developer has used '/usr/bin/env python' for ages, but relatively recently he has decided to switch to '/usr/bin/env python2' for fear that some distros would use Python 3 by default.
>
> Ahmad insists that '/usr/bin/python' should be used in Mageia.
>
> As long as '/usr/bin/env python' _works_, I see no point in trying to rewrite other people's work.
>
> I would say that the general principle should be to apply a _minimal_ patching, not to try to rewrite the work of the developers of hundreds of packages!
>
> A distro's job is not to judge the work of the _upstream_ developers as long as this is not a real bug.
>
> "Should" Mageia try to "fix" something that is not actually broken? There might be hundreds of packages with thousands and thousands of questionable decisions taken by the upstream developers -- however, why fixing something that works?
>
> You see, I hate conflicts (although I seem to be a maestro in generating them), but I also need simplicity and clear policies. Also, policies that can be applied. "Perfect" policies that would require the revision of hundreds of packages that actually work are not my cup of tea.
>
> Of course, I am _not_ a Mageia packager and this is not "my" package, but I'd like to know Mageia's policy wrt building packages. Normally, patches are not meant to optimize but to fix breakages. If the packagers are compelled to "improve" upstream's work, this can prove to be catastrophic in complex cases.

We don't have any python2 symlink or binary on mageia.