Excerpts from Duncan Coutts's message of Sat Dec 12 03:26:30 +0100 2009:
On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 01:00 +0100, Marc Weber wrote:
hackage is success because: a) many (most) people do use it (by uploading packages) b) it is a comprehensive list of availible packages if not the most comprehensive one
Duncan, can you write about your concerns briefly why some maintainers may dislike this idea ?
I added a section to the wiki page you created.
I didn't paste the link earlier because I was no longer sure whether a wiki page is the best thing todo. Anyway here it is: http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Hackage_wiki_page_per_project_discussion Duncan added this section: 3 Concerns My (DuncanCoutts) concern is about the consent from package authors. Hackage is a social bargain. We ask package authors to distribute their work through hackage because it provides benefits to the community. If we impose too much on package authors then they may decide it's just not worth it. In particular, if we automatically create a wiki page for every package then we are imposing additional obligations on package authors. As a package author I might be concerned that this wiki page duplicates an existing home page or bug tracking system. If there's a wiki page about my project then I am effectively obligated to check it from time to time, since users will inevitably report bugs etc there. It is that extra obligation that package authors may resent. There is no problem with such a feature being opt-in, but whether it is something we require and impose on package authors needs much more of a social consensus before we go ahead. So how do we reach this consensus? Is it feasable to ask all package authors which uploaded anything to hackage? Duncan, can you also separate your thoughts and switch in two different roles: a) You as package maintainer (eg supporting cabal) b) You as cabal (& hackage) maintainer thinking about package maintainers contributing to hackage. Thus are you concerned yourself ? Would you prefer opt-in for the projects *you* maintain ? Do you think package authors which do care (and which have a bug tracking system and a home page (eg gtk2hs)) would be willing to add those links to the wiki? It could look like this: Dear user. Let me tell you about: * package bug tracking system (link) * package homepage (link) * package mailinglist (...) * package repository: darcs get ..... And people will follow those links and create a bug report. Moreover I think they would be even thankful! If they don't they are just stupid. And you'll always meet this kind of users.. And again: We generated value because you don't have to upload a new package to tell users about a new homepage or a new bug tracking system or whatever. They will find it by themselves without magic and without contacting you and without looking at the darcs repository (which may take much time ..) If you have time to maintain a package you also have time to ad 4 links or less. If you don't this means you don't care which is also fine. Marc Weber