Subject: FVWM: Re: Unofficial debian package for 2.5.8

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 04:41:46 +0000

On 11 Nov 2003 16:24:07 -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> 
> On 11 Nov 2003 16:06:55 -0500, Paul Smith <[email-masked]> said: 
> 
> > %% Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]> writes:
> >>> deb http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/ packages/ deb-src
> >>> http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/ packages/source/
> 
> mg> In case you are not aware of it, we provide the deb package from
> mg> fvwm.org download page. See also my message on this list from 31
> mg> October about automatical creation of a deb package from the
> mg> sources.
> 
> > It would be very cool if you guys put this together so that the
> > packages were available at Manoj's area so we can get them through
> > APT directly instead of downloading them and installing them with
> > dpkg -i.
> 
> 	I would be happy if people took my patches.

You are welcome to send patches that improve the deb package we provide.
However if you speak about hooks and other ancient things, I see them as
a clear deterioration. This will not be applied. The configuration in
your patch are so ancient (from 5-7 years ago?) that it makes no sence to
start to fix it. It should be dropped. We already provide 2 sets of
configurations for a user without any fvwm2rc. Maintaining more
configurations that are also distribution specific is meaningless.

We also don't add any distribution specific legacy things to our rpms.
The binary packages from developers are clean and include only the things
installed on a regular "make install". With addition of all mandatory
stuff to pass the package requirements and minor usability things.

Regards,
Mikhael.
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---

From: Manoj Srivastava <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 01:37:30 -0600

> You are welcome to send patches that improve the deb package we
> provide.  However if you speak about hooks and other ancient things,
> I see them as a clear deterioration. This will not be applied. The
> configuration in your patch are so ancient (from 5-7 years ago?)
> that it makes no sence to start to fix it. It should be dropped. We
> already provide 2 sets of configurations for a user without any
> fvwm2rc. Maintaining more configurations that are also distribution
> specific is meaningless.

	I am not wedded to the configuration examples. If that is your
 sole objection, then it is easl=ily fixed. 

> We also don't add any distribution specific legacy things to our
> rpms.  The binary packages from developers are clean and include
> only the things installed on a regular "make install". With addition
> of all mandatory stuff to pass the package requirements and minor
> usability things.

	Are we still speaking of the examples? 

	I note that the packages provided do not integrate well into
 Debian's menu system, nor do they integrate with the alternatives
 system; and, off hand, I do not see a system wide default fvwmrc. Are
 these the legacy things you refer to? If so, I am afraid that the
 packages provided by Debian must remain diverged; some of these are
 required by the need to present an consistent integration of window
 managers into Debian.

	I am not the official maintainer of FVWM in Debian, but I'll
 try and see if I can get him to cede the apckage to me, when I'll
 have greater control over the default configuration.

	manoj
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---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 12:18:36 +0000

> 	Are we still speaking of the examples? 

I am speaking about the patch of 1.2Mb that you apply.

It would be acceptable if you apply a patch of 500b, but at this point
you just package something else, not what we release.

>  system;

Try the latest cvs, I think this is all handled at the needed minimum.

>  and, off hand, I do not see a system wide default fvwmrc.

fvwm is best to be run without any system wide fvwmrc, especially the one
written 5-7 years ago. The users then gets a menu and a choice to setup
2 configurations we maintain. There is also the third choice, fvwm-themes.

>  Are these
>  the legacy things you refer to? If so, I am afraid that the packages
>  provided by Debian must remain diverged; some of these are required by
>  the need to present an consistent integration of window managers into
>  Debian.

To do it propertly, I would package fvwm-legacy that could be installed
by the users who need it on top of the clean deb (most of the users do
not need this additional package).

>  have greater control over the default configuration.

I don't really worry about any specific distribution and their internal
politics, the only thing I worry is to get much less distribution specific
questions/problems on this list.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: "Paul Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Nov 2003 10:35:13 -0500

>> Are we still speaking of the examples? 

  mg> I am speaking about the patch of 1.2Mb that you apply.

Maybe a good way forward would be for someone to go through the 1.2M
patch and give a concise bullet list of all the changes that it makes.

Then we can have a bullet-by-bullet discussion about whether each is
appropriate or not, in the new FVWM.  It seems that the FVWM Debian
package is suffering from some bitrot, where the Debian-specific parts
haven't always been modified to reflect enhancements in the base
package.

As an example I agree with Mikhael that there shouldn't be a system-wide
default fvwm config: Dan's excellent work to bring up a configurator for
new FVWM users shouldn't be hidden by years-old crusty configuration
files.

Let's get the list of changes, then we can all decide how to create the
best possible package for both Debian users and FVWM developers.

I've had a lot of good experiences with Manoj as the Debian maintainer
of GNU make so I feel confident we can work together just as amicably
for FVWM.  For DEBs, even moreso than with RPMs, I don't think it's a
good idea to have two very different setups: it just doesn't make sense
in the Debian world.  If we can get the "official" DEB setup, or very
close to it, into the FVWM release tarball that would be most excellent.

Should we move this discussion to the fvwm-workers list?

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