Debian: contempt for "end user" values has to stop!"

[Florian Diesch]

Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> writes:

> 2009/8/20 Ray Leventhal <ubuntu at swhi.net>:
>
>> My point was clearly misunderstood if it's been thought of as harmful.
>>
>> Lets try to make that point by example.
> [...]
>> I had a need and I took it upon myself to fix MY need.  The blogger who
>> says that 'my need for a font manager isn't being met, therefore the
>> FOSS community sucks' doesn't get it.  He wants it the way he wants it
>> and he wants it for free.  That's not how it works, unless someone has
>> already written it and seen fit to open the source for us all to
>> use/modify/play with.  Mostly that model works really really well.  I
>> thrive on it and revel in it.
>
> But that is not what the post was about. You are misreading the
> original post, AFAICS.
>
> The point of the post was this:
>
>  - something used to work fine
>  - a programmer has come along and disabled it
>      • 2 examples have been given:
>        [1] a font that has been removed because someone felt its
> functions were fulfilled elsewhere

According to <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=407711>
it has been removed because nobody wanted to maintain it anymore.

If you want it back see
<http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html#firstpackage>.


>        [2] a stylus setup tool that was removed because some
> programmer disliked the programming tools used to create it and
> intended to write something better but has never got round to it

I don't understand the rational behind that, too.  But judging from the
very few comments on
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=315142> there doesn't
seem much interest from end users in this issue either.


>  - both of these changes have resulted in a loss of functionality for end-users
>  - because the programmers have a privileged position in the distro,
> the changes will not be reversed

The just have the privilege to not having to convince anybody but themselves to
get things done. 

But you don't have to be a programmer to submit a package to Debian.



   Florian
-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>