Austin Ziegler's behaviour (Was: clarification of ruby libraries installation paths?)

Austin,

On 29/10/07 at 12:54 +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> Although I like Ubuntu, I will *never* install a package-based Ruby on
> a Debian system because the packages for 1.6 and 1.8 were so badly
> mangled that you had to install ten *different* packages that
> didn't always state their dependencies clearly...
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Please provide an example (or better, a bug number) of what you mean by
"didn't always state their dependencies clearly". It's true that some
libs part of stdlib are not in the "libruby1.8" package, for good
reasons. But their dependencies are clearly stated, AFAIK.

> and then you'd have to redo some of them
> because Debian (in its infinite zealotry) doesn't think that
> OpenSSL is Free Enough

Not true. If the ruby openssl lib is not installed by default when you
install libruby1.8 (the stdlib package), it's because it would pull some
other dependencies that are not needed if you don't use the openssl
lib. So packages using the openssl lib will depend on it explicitely (or
recommend it). See feed2imap, for which I'm the upstream dev, for an
example.

> and therefore doesn't install it by default and you can't do that
> thing you could do out of the box on windows.

True, there are some differences between Windows and Linux, and with the
way you install apps on those two platforms. Some people prefer one
platform, some people prefer the other. Both for good reasons, usually.

> Or something like that.

"something like that"? So you are clearly talking about things you don't
understand, spreading FUD, as usual.

How would you react if I said:
- the PDF::Writer author, in its infinite zealotry, decided to
  do X in a non-standard compliant way, so you would have to redo X
  manually for each PDF you generate.
- the PDF::Writer author is so insanely stupid that you'd better
  generate PDF by hand instead of using it.
(none of the above being true -- I've never used PDF::Writer)

Your answers on this thread are full of hate and anger. I'm sorry if you
had a bad experience with Debian, Ubuntu, or something else in the past.
I'm involved in Debian development, trying to improve things, but being
received with so aggressive mails here make me reconsider a lot of
things.

Your behaviour clearly doesn't fit in the free software community. And I
can't remember the last time I faced someone so annoying in the free
software community.

You don't care about how distros (or Apple) package ruby. I respect your
POV.  But I think that you made your opinion clear several times now,
and that you should just refrain from replying to my mails, or to
threads about distros, in the future.

Several people encouraged my efforts (on-list and off-list) aiming at a
better/more standardized ruby layout on distros, so there's clearly some
interest in that, but your pollution of all threads on the subject with
flames doesn't really allow productive discussions.

Note that in those threads, I never asked anyone to "fix Debian's
problem". As your said, what packagers choose to do is their
responsibility. I'm seeking advices, trying to communicate with the
upstream project to find good solutions. Usually, this is considered a
Good Thing (at least by the other upstream devs I talk to). But your
attitude is totally discouraging.
-- 
| Lucas Nussbaum
| [e-mail]   http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ |
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