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Re: News about the macro archive


From: Tom Howard
Subject: Re: News about the macro archive
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2005 13:52:54 +1100
User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206)

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Hi Peter,

I think we are all kind of over this and it seems as though a lot of
what we were arguing about was simple due to us not understanding each
other.  That said, there are still some points you have made that I need
to respond to.

Peter Simons wrote:
> Tom Howard writes:
> 
>  >> That impression I have is very closely related to
>  >> reading statements that are FACTUALLY UNTRUE.
> 
>  > I you want to call me a liar (or imply that I am one),
>  > please be decent enough to refer to the exact points
>  > where I lied.
> 
> I am sorry, you misunderstood me. I was just saying that
> lots of the things you post are WRONG; I didn't mean you
> imply you were doing it on purpose.

Cool.  I though you were implying otherwise.

>  > From this end it became a flaming when I dared to try to
>  > convince you that a verbose license statement would be
>  > better then just a keyword.
> 
> Don't forget to mention that "convincing" in this context
> really means: "... when I was trying to commit verbose
> license statements instead of the keyword that we agreed on
> and when I didn't listen to you telling me a dozen times to
> please not do it and kept debating and debating even though
> the problem could have been long solved in a third of the
> time either of us spend debating something we agreed on to
> do otherwise earlier."

You know I never tried to commit those changes. In

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/ac-archive-maintainers/2005-01/msg00257.html


I even stated that I would do so in a branch because I wanted to make
sure the way I had done it was OK with you before affecting your tools.

>  > The stupid thing is that all you had to say was "Yeah
>  > mate, I agree, but I want to use the keyword for the
>  > moment and then when all the changes are complete switch
>  > them a verbose license."
> 
> Tom, the stupid thing is that you didn't just do what we
> agreed on! Let me quote from the private e-mail I sent you
> on 2005-01-21:
> 
>  | Anyway, if you update your 'ac-archive' tree, you'll see
>  | that I have converted all macros to the "new" format now.
>  | All keywords are in place now. The value of @license
>  | defaulted to "GPLWithACException", so if you want to
>  | change any of the macros' states already, just edit that
>  | to say
>  |
>  |   @license AllPermissive
>  |
>  | instead.
> 
> Where in that e-mail did you find anything about adding
> verbose license disclaimers? So why did you do it? Why
> didn't you speak up _right away_ instead of saying nothing
> and doing something different than I expected?

I had already begun the changes in to verbose form by the time I
received your email.

> Why didn't you reply: I am not convinced a mere @license
> keyword will be enough to make everybody happy. How about I
> add the verbose text?

I did.  See the message referenced above.

> Then I would have said: That's not necessary, my tool will
> replace that tag with the verbose text. Until then, please
> just edit the tag.
> 
> You may think that I should have communicated my intent more
> clearly. Well, be my guest. I think you should have listened
> to what I _did_ communicate.

As state above, I had already begun the changes when you communicated
how you wanted them done.

>  >>> I've made the licence changes that you requested (and
>  >>> as your requested).
>  >>
>  >> I am sorry, but it is a little late for that.
>  >
>  > Yes, but only because instead of having a proper
>  > discussion, you got annoyed and made the changes
>  > yourself.
> 
> I did it myself because after a very lengthy discussion it
> was becoming perfectly clear that you wouldn't do it, Tom.

Ah, no.  Before I got the chance to commit ( I was waiting for the
modules file to be in place), all the files had moved, rendering the
discussion about how to make the changes mute.

> And by the way: It took a bit over 30 minutes to do it.

Incompletely.

> Now
> that there is no more need to do anything -- because I did
> it --, NOW you suddenly are all cooperative and teary eyed
> and can't understand what happened. That sounded a lot
> different a few days ago.

When everything moved I stopped all work on the archive, because it was
not clear what else would be affected and when.

BTW I'm yet to shed a tear ;p

> How about those "missing macros" that I didn't assign
> properly? You've asked whether I'd want you to take care of
> those and I said: Yes! Please do. Now check this out:
> 
>   peti:~/work/autoconf-archive/m4src$ cvs up
>   peti:~/work/autoconf-archive/m4src$
> 
> See what is happening? _Nothing_ is happening.

Hey, I do have a life you know.  If you need something done in a
specified time frame, let me know in advance and I can at least tell you
if I can do it within that time frame.

>  >> I appreciate it when people admit that they were wrong.
>  >> Thank you for that.
> 
>  > And I would appreciate likewise if you admitted moving
>  > all the files you knew I was working on without telling
>  > me was wrong. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath.
> 
> You know what? I'll do something even more powerful than
> apologizing for unreasonably using the version control
> system that exists to coordinate asynchronous work from
> different people. I'll tell you how to _solve_ a problem
> like this the next time you have it. It's highly
> sophisticated software developer know-how and I don't
> usually tell these kind of secrets on public mailing lists,
> but what the hell! Clearly, I fucked up, so I have an
> obligation to share that little secret with you now.

Dude, do you really need to swear on a public mailing list?  I mean I
understand in the heat of the moment and everything (I do so all the
time), but via email there is no real excuse is there?

> Watch closely:
> 
>   mv legacy/*/*.m4 m4src/
>   cvs up -P

This would result in the loss of the other changes you made to the
files.  If you meant for me to do this before I grab the new files (by
doing `cvs update`) then 1) too late and 2) I can imaging cvs would
complain about trying to add what it thinks is a new file in my sandbox
when there is a existing file there.  Worst case scenario would be a lot
a manual resolving of merge conflicts.

> I realize you couldn't possibly have that idea. So here we
> go: I apologize for hopelessly screwing up the immense
> effort you have been putting in something I didn't want by
> moving a couple of files into a flat directory space using a
> version control system.

Though it doesn't sound sincere at all, I accept your apology.  All I
ask is that if you want me to help with this project is that you keep me
informed of any major changes before they are done.  While on that
topic, can you request a mailing list for commits (e.g.
address@hidden) and ask Savannah support to modify the cvs
to send emails on commits?

>  >> Since this is a project I do in my spare time, I am not
>  >> interested in going through the immense effort of
>  >> finding consensus, I am interested in running the
>  >> archive I want to run.
>  >
>  > I see this is where we differ most on opinions. For my
>  > projects, it's all about the community that surrounds it,
>  > for the GNU archive, it's all about you. At least that's
>  > how I read the above. Correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> If you regard me not wanting to do what you want me to do as
> not caring about the "community", then I guess you are
> right.

How can you within yourself justify asking for help with the project,
when you are "not interested in going through the immense effort of
finding consensus"?   From my end (it may be another misunderstanding)
you are willing to use my help, but I'm not allowed to voice my opinions.

>  > Did I ever "interfere" with your work?
> 
> Well, no. Fortunately I made this massive CVS reorganization
> that prevented you from interfering.

Don't fool yourself that you prevented my from interfering.  Removing
CVS write privileges is the only way to do that.  Concede the point, at
no time did I "interfere" with your work.

>  > To all the people I have represented (possibly falsely)
>  > in this discussion: Please tell me I'm wrong.
> 
> I have great difficulties taking people seriously who appeal
> to authority rather than stating rational reasons for the
> things they believe are right. It doesn't matter jack squat
> how many people you can recruit to shout: "You are right,
> Tom!" You could say the most insane thing -- like, "Windows
> makes far more secure Internet servers than Unix does" --,
> and you'd easily find thousands of people who'd agree with
> you. So what does that say about the security of
> Windows-based Internet servers? Zilch.

This is a pointless discussion.  I assert that some of my opinions are
those of more than just myself, you assert otherwise.  Let's agree to
disagree on this one.

>  >> I suggest we both speak for ourselves.
> 
>  > Guido has responded in agreement to some of my posts and
>  > Alexandre likewise, I'll wait till I hear negative
>  > feedback from the users and contributors first.
> 
> Okay. Then wait a little before you start speaking for
> yourself. Fine with me.
> 
> 
>  > If someone was pretending to represent me, and their
>  > opinions differed from mine, I would speak up.
> 
> Yeah, Tom, but the little hidden assumption you make is that
> you'd _know_ about it. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this
> mailing list has approximately 7 subscribers.
> 
> 
>  >> The reason why I don't trust you, Tom, is not this
>  >> exchange; it is the fact that you were ignoring the
>  >> agreement we had on how to update the content for the
>  >> license disclaimer addition.
> 
>  > I was not ignoring you, I was trying to discuss it with
>  > you.
> 
> You were trying to discuss it with me only _after_ you did
> it differently than we agreed on? How is that gonna help
> anyone?

The only time we agreed on how the changes should be done was after you
finally mentioned that the keyword was temporary.  Before that there was
no agreement and I had already begun the changes by the time you told me
how you wanted them done.

>  > If I was just ignoring you, I wouldn't have mentioned on
>  > the list how I was doing the changes, I would have just
>  > committed them my way. Please have the courtesy to
>  > retract the above statement.
> 
> No. You did NOT mention on the list that you were doing
> something other than I thought until the CVS move "broke"
> your efforts.

I refer you again to

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/ac-archive-maintainers/2005-01/msg00257.html

It was posted in direct response you email which instructed me on how
you would like the changes made.

> That was when I learned you were about to
> commit verbose license disclaimers instead of the proper
> keywords.

Into a branch, so it would not affect you until a consensus was reached
on what to do.

> And I have every indication that you _would_ have
> committed them instead of the proper keywords, like we
> agreed you would.

You have nothing to indicate that I would do so into the main branch and
as posted previously, it was very easy for me to change it from the
verbose format to your format.  The verbose format would have never gone
into the main branch without your approval.

>  >> I have no use for people who change plans without saying
>  >> anything, especially if their spontaneous decisions
>  >> spoil _my_ plans.
> 
>  > How did anything I committed spoil your plans?
> 
> Let me rephrase: "... their spontaneous decisions would have
> spoiled _my_ plans."

How about this, next time make you plans clear before you recruit me to
help you, that way I know exactly what you want before you say
(paraphrasing) "here's how I want you to do it.  Schnell!".  Now even
though you prefer that I speak only for my self, I strongly suggest to
do the same for anyone else you recruit, because I suspect their
opinions on this matter would be identical to mine.

> 
>  >>> [The ac-archive-build tree] did actually work, and I
>  >>> gave you instructions on how it worked.
>  >>
>  >> [No, it did not, and I indicated so on the list.]
>  >
>  > I honestly do no have any such follow up. Can you please
>  > point me to the exact email as I think I never received
>  > it.
> 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/ac-archive-maintainers/2005-01/msg00222.html

Very strange. I have no idea why I didn't get that email.

Peter Simons wrote:
> Yes, that reorganization isn't going to happen for at least
> a week or two. I'd like to get it right this time. ;-)

Posted on the 20th and the change was made by the 25th.  Some day we'll
have to discuss the definition of a week or two ;)

> This is the part where it fails right now: I can't find
> "booststrap" and "autoreconf -i" doesn't seem to work.

I should have added the boostrap.  As I said earlier in reference to a
later email ;), my bad.  My guess is that autoreconf doesn't work
because it can't find the m4 files that I use from the m4-src dir.  I
haven't used autoreconf before, so I'll have to check how to get it to
look in m4-src (or for your stuff in m4src).

> Just so that we don't duplicate any effort: I have a pretty
> sophisticated GNUmakefile that builds the entire archive.
> That stuff isn't in CVS right now, but I'll make a version
> available ASAP, probably when doing the CVS layout changes.
>
> The thing that is missing right now is a mechanism to build
> (and test!) a versioned release archive. I see that is what
> your stuff can do already? If we could share the effort so
> that you worry about packaging and I worry about building,
> then the result should be pretty darn cool. Is that alright?

*sigh* of all the emails to go missing...

That's cool.  I've got some small issues I'm trying to resolve with
AX_AM_MACROS at the moment, but once that's done, I'll be able to easily
add support for `make rpm` in the stuff you have done.  Let me get that
(resolve my issues) done, then I'll let know know exactly what I'm
thinking of doing (It's just some small changes to the configure.am file).

> How about having a "make install-current" target that
> fetches all files on-line from cvs.gnu.org directly before
> it installs them? I think that would be what most people
> really want, and it would be an incredibly small tar.gz
> file. ;-) Is that possible?

`make install-current` sounds like a great idea and it shouldn't be too
difficult at all to implement.  Not sure about exactly how to go about
pruning files to make a really small tgz, nor the advantage this would
have (my understanding of what you are saying is that the tgz would just
have instructions for how to grab the latest and install it).

Cheers,

- --
Tom Howard

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