[ATrpms-users] Re: atrpms query

[Axel Thimm]

On Sat, Jun 26, 2004 at 05:57:45PM +0100, Ed Avis wrote:
> Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> writes:
> 
> >"atrpms" is harmless, some argued once that they didn't like the
> >bundling of configuration files to this package. Since half a year
> >these have been split off this package and everybody is happy. Well,
> >not everybody, there are some people who try to find reasons to not
> >be happy ;)

Oops, where did you dig that one from? You haven't been in vacation in
the last 5 weeks, have you? ;)

> I'm one of those.  Installing the atrpms package is fine for a home
> machine, but it can be difficult to persuade a sysadmin to install a
> package that puts things in /etc/cron.d/.  I'd strongly suggest you
> try to reduce the number of packages that depend on atrpms,

That has already been done.

> and for those that must, perhaps split atrpms into minimal helper
> packages (atrpms-fix-perl-library-path, etc).

Sigh ...

OTOH people want me to split one package consisting of 5 files into 6
packages. On the other hand one of the most often downloaded package
is atrpms-kickstart (which I learned to hate like my mother-in-law,
but people became quite dependent on it), because of its monolithic
structure (it is really what atrpms once was & apt).

It is difficult to satisfy both groups, and since the cron entry can
be switched off by simply commenting parts of
/etc/sysconfig/check4updates, I think that atrpms can still be
considered completely harmless. After all the cron entry only check
for updates, but does not install them. And lets also look at the
records of harm caused by atrpms in its current and past forms in the
last 2 1/2 years: none. :)

Just to make the other side visible, for some users atrpms is "too"
harmless:

http://bugzilla.atrpms.net/show_bug.cgi?id=66

> At the moment, atrpms packages look like they are trying to borg your
> machine, and many people don't like that.

Well, that's an exaggeration, and oil for upcoming flames.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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