Consider this scenario. A developer is running Fedora rawhide on one of
his spare machines. The developer is not directly involved in the
Fedora process. He just likes to keep track of the latest changes
because he is a hobbyist. Fedora is also his favorite distro, so he
likes to know all the latest news, so he reads mailing lists such as
this one every now and then.<br>
<br>
Now consider this. He notices that one of his favorite applications has
a bug. He has two choices, fix the bug himself or file a bug report. If
he chooses to file a bug report, he must first find out where the
erroneous software is hosted. This probably involves a Google search or
two, not so bad. Once he finds the site where the package is
maintained, he must now find where to file the bug. He must now search
the site for the ubiquitous Bugzilla. Now he must most likely register
an account with that Bugzilla. Finally, after this whole process he
must submit the bug report. Then he might track the bug by e-mail until
it gets fixed (but most likely he will just forget about it and hope
the maintainer gets around to fixing it). The developer could have just
chosen to submit the report to Red Hat's bugzilla, but he is
conscientious and knows the problem will probably be fixed sooner if he
submits it directly to the project owners bug database.<br>
<br>
Now consider the scenario where the developer can yum install --source
some-package, and have it install the source along with all the
dependent source packages. Then he would be able to cd to some dir
where he can type make and the source will compile without issues or
missing headers. Then he goes into the source dir with his favorite
editor and makes a couple mods to the source. He re-compiles probably a
few times and now the bug is fixed. He is no longer annoyed by the bug
in his favorite app, since he typed make install and the changes
automatically took effect on his machine. After maybe a day or two of
running with the changes, he is sure he hasn't b0rked anything so he
creates a patch and submits it to Red Hat's bugzilla. He doesn't have
to worry about running around willy-nilly finding the master maintainer
because he knows the Fedora maintainer already knows the lead
developers and will submit the patch upstream eventually. The patch
then makes its way into rawhide for more widespread testing. People on
the mailing list thank the person for fixing their most hated bug. The
developer feels great for helping out others who were annoyed by the
same problem. The feeling is addictive and now Fedora has gained a
semi-casual code contributor who most likely fixes little annoying
things that the main developers couldn't be bothered with.<br>
<br>
I, as a programmer and a Fedora hobbyist, definitely prefer the latter
scenario as opposed to the former. Such an enhancement in yum would
make it so much easier to hack buggy code. It would also make it easier
to fix critical (or just annoying) bugs faster and perhaps deploy and
test the fixes before rawhide trackers even see them. Plus, being able
to fix a bug and submit a patch for it in one centralized place (RH
Bugzilla) is so much more satisfying than signing up for countless
Bugzilla and CVS accounts. Besides, for those who have the skills to
fix the bugs instead of just reporting them, why not make it easier for
these people to actually fix the bugs? Isn't this what &quot;open source&quot; is
all about. It doesn't make sense for any distro to make it harder to
install the source than it is to install binaries. Doesn't make sense
at all.<br><br>
This type of change would make room for more casual code contributors.
Let the more dedicated Fedora/Red Hat developers worry about the
semantics of getting fixes upstream. I bet even some of the more
hardcore developers would soon find this functionality indispensable
too.<br>
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/27/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Paul Wouters</b> &lt;<a href="mailto:paul@cypherpunks.ca">paul@cypherpunks.ca</a>&gt; wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, seth vidal wrote:<br><br>&gt; &gt; &gt; yum install yum-utils<br>&gt; &gt; &gt; yumdownloader --source package<br>&gt; &gt; &gt;<br>&gt; &gt;<br>&gt; &gt; That's useful, thanks.<br>&gt; &gt; Might this functionality ever be built into yum though?
<br>&gt; &gt;<br>&gt;<br>&gt; no<br><br>That's a really good answer if you want developrs to feel that they<br>are being taken seriously.....<br><br>Do you think there is a fundamental problem with people being able to get
<br>the sources easilly? Is yum fundamentally flawed for this? Is it too much<br>work to put in yum?<br><br>We might appreciate decisions better if we know why they are made in a<br>certain way.<br><br>Paul<br><br>--<br>fedora-devel-list mailing list
<br><a href="mailto:fedora-devel-list@redhat.com">fedora-devel-list@redhat.com</a><br><a href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list">https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list</a><br></blockquote>
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