Re: ion3 license

On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 09:07:55AM +0000, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
> On 2007-12-18, John Robson <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Simply adding the message you want to the top of the ion man page
> 
> People read manual pages? Those people that install Ion from a distro
> without checking whether it is obsolete?

> 
> > that "informational" window that you get first time you run ion really  
> > ought to be enough to say "this package may not be the latest available -  
> > check tuomo's site". 
> 
> Bah, the distros conduct is the problem, so they should fix it.
> 
> And besides, then I'd have to forbid the distros from removing that -- 
> and again they would moan that "it's not free". (The FSF is actually 
> among the saner end of the FOSS movement, what with GFDL including 
> invariant sections, and GPLv3 containing provisions for requiring 
> modified versions to be renamed or so. The real zealots are centered
> around the distros, and only consider those licenses "free" that give
> distros the most power at the expense of authors.)
> 
> It's funny, actually: FOSS is supposed to be developed in a bazaar, 
> but the typical FOSS licenses are only suited for cathedral mode of 
> development: release when it is ready and stable as a rock. For 
> otherwise you'll have to suffer from distros distributing obsolete
> development snapshots.
> 
> > So anyone who doesn't spend all their time recompiling software for what  
> > is, for most people, a tool and nothing more, is an idiot according to you.
> 
> These are not end-users with other specialities, but rather the lower
> strata of developers.
> 
> > Well, I almost exclusively use binary packages - because they make my life  
> > easier.  
> 
> I provide one too -- for a few platforms. Most authors provide them on 
> Windows. But generally binary packages for FOSS operating systems are only
> available from The Party. 
> 
> > You'd rather deal with yourself and only yourself - you've demonstrated  
> > this arrogance before, and will do again.  
> 
> I've had enough of the FOSS herd, and how it's destroying everything I
> once thought could be great. I really am universes distant from them. 
> 
> > It's a shame that I don't have  
> > the time to write a tiling WM myself, because I actually think that a  
> > couple of us here could do a very good job of it.
> 
> Yep, the typical FOSS attitude: write a clone for petty reasons of 
> ideology, rather than fixing far bigger issues with the shoddy quality
> of FOSS crap, the monoculturist practises prevalent in the movement,
> ridding yourself of the love of The Party, and so on.
> 
> -- 
> Tuomo
> 

tuomo,

everything  has (again) be said often enough, but I try it a
last time.  up to now I gave you  the  credit  of  having  a
(minor)  point  and  thus a bit of justification for causing
this trouble. but stepping back a bit and trying to  analyse
your reasoning shows that it's altogether off-the-wall.

the  problem  is  that  you  WANT  something  and then argue
backwards  to  construct  reasons  for   your   intransigent
attitude.  and  excessive  albeit  sometimes creative use of
four letter words is  nothing  but  replacing  arguments  by
shouting.

so,  yes:  people  do  read  manpages. and john is of course
right, that such a modification to the manpage or  something
similar  would suffice to make your sole point: tuomo (if no
one else) considers anything older  than  4  weeks  obsolete
crab.

regularly,  at  this point, you twist it along the same line
of "reasoning": users  too  dumb/lazy  to  understand  this,
therefore  I need more'. tell you what, you'll never achieve
a state where 100% of the people get the message. but  maybe
90%     would   really   be  enough.  moreover,  your  whole
supposition that users will complain in large numbers  seems
wrong  to me. how much traffic is there on the mailing list?
what if you ignore mails which violate  your  high  standard
("current version or nothing")?

but  that  does  not  satisfy  you.  somehow you need "them"
crawling in the dust. so this "fight"  is  not  about  users
coming  to  you  (how  do  they  do this? I only know of the
mailing list -- it's  that  difficult  _not_  to  answer  if
someone asks for help with a 12 month old ion3 version?) and
demanding help (nobody _demands_ it), it's about  some  kind
of  crusade  (the  historic as well as the contemporary ones
have been notoriously successful endeavours).

the  only  thing  you  achieve  is  the annihilation of time
resources all over the place, your own included  (by  futile
mail  discussions,  by  the  trouble in the repositories, by
problems with compiling it yourself).

and  defining  the  distros as the evil empire -- yeah sure,
they have the bomb, too.

so  I think you are addressing more or less only 2 different
points:

1. users thick as a brick. therefore must enforce my message
with draconic measures.

2. distros evil. therefore must fight them.

after   the   fight:  nothing  works  any  longer.   mission
accomplished.

and,  finally,  after  reading the last posts: it seems that
ion3 has quite some dependencies which still  cause  trouble
in  the  build  process.  I  only  know of a single wm which
really compiles out of the box without _any_  trouble:  dwm.
I  don't  think  the  much larger/complexer ion3 can achieve
this -- that's why all the distros  are  there  and  do  the
patching and tweaking. and so on and so on.

so, altogether, I think your goals for ion3 are ill-defined:
make up your  mind  if  you  want  that  it  is  used  in  a
significant  number  of  installations.  if  so, accept that
`ion3' might be mutating a bit in some distros (mostly  this
won't  happen  at  all)  or  that it will exist in different
versions concurrently. no problem at all, except if you have
a  weird  sense  of property and are a control freak. or has
ion3 become simply a means of fighting the evil  empire  for
you?

without  the  fighting the situation would be as it has been
for some years: ion3 available and usable. everybody  happy.
nobody corrupting your work in any real way.

if  you  don't  want  that  it's used, burn it, for heaven's
sake. this would be at least a quicker  and  more  efficient
procedure in comparison to what's going on right now.

joerg