X-Recipient: archive-cygwin@delorie.com X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Message-ID: Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:23:09 -0400 From: "Mark J. Reed" To: cygwin@cygwin.com, "Dave Korn" Subject: Re: setup.exe needs package name selection filter In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <485AFB14.9090400@gmail.com> <20080620095103.3892@blackhawk> <20080620005700.GB26573@ednor.casa.cgf.cx> <485B02D9.8050806@gmail.com> <000501c8d2c7$68afb690$2708a8c0@CAM.ARTIMI.COM> X-Google-Sender-Auth: cd6d762d6d003059 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin@cygwin.com Is there a ticketing/tracking system for Cygwin where one can submit feature requests? I think having it documented in the system as something more than someone's wishful email would be helpful. As far as improvements to setup.exe, I think the Cygwin team could potentially save a lot of effort in the long term by porting and adopting one of the Linux package managers in its place - apt or yum or whatever. On 6/20/08, Hugh Sasse wrote: > On Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Dave Korn wrote: > >> reikred wrote on 20 June 2008 02:08: >> >> > Christopher Faylor wrote: >> >> >> >> Yes. It's called >> >> >> "make-setup.exe-demands-and-then-sit-back-and-wait-for-people-to-implement-y >> our-profound-ideas@cygwin.com" >> >> >> >> cgf >> >> > [...] >> > >> > Please read it in the spirit of a suggestion of a feature >> > that I think could be VERY useful to a lot of people, not >> > just the 1% of cygwin users that know how to implement it. >> > >> > rr >> >> >> It's definitely a good suggestion, quite possibly a great suggestion. > [...] >> I think the point that cgf is getting at is that there is no shortage of >> suggestions or good ideas or enhancement requests or wish lists nor any >> difficulty in coming up with new ones. But without a bit of >> getting-it-done >> elbow grease, a suggestion is really very little use on its own. > > This is a recurring problem for the Free Software movement. People > want Free Software to spread, and there are efforts, such as the > attempt to get a record number of downloads for Firefox 3, as > promotional activities. But a constant theme is that suggestions > from users are not welcomed; instead they provoke various forms of > the response: "If you want it, send a patch". This fails to > recognise that one reason programmers don't like maintenance > programming is that reading code is more difficult than writing it. > This is a pre-requisite for changing the code. It also fails to > recognise that a user for one project who is completely unfamiliar > with the code base, may be busy contributing to other projects, and > that some suggestions may be very much easier for someone familiar > with the code than someone who is not. Also, if users' suggestions > are (effectively) dismissed in this way, it will prevent the use of > Free Software by non-programmers, which runs counter to the desire > for it to spread. Most of the potential users of Free Software are > non-programmers. [Yes, this is less so for Cygwin.] > > Clearly decisions are not made in the same way as for a software > business, where finance is fundamental, but I'd suggest that unless > the needs of users are given greater status, then Free Software > advocacy will be somewhat hobbled. But as this is a cultural problem, > and there is no immediately obvious technical solution, I'm unsure > how one might practically improve the situation. I do think more > thought should be given to it, though. > >> >> cheers, >> DaveK > > Hugh > > -- > Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple > Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html > Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html > FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ > > -- Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com Mark J. Reed -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/