Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Stephan Erb <steve-e AT h3c.de>]

Hello,

You asked for more user feedback and here you go. I don't want to be
offensive but just let you know what I think and what experiences I make
 using SGML.

1) stable, stable-rc, testing and whatever
Why should I use your stable-tree? It's outdated and I cannot be sure
whether all security fixes make it into the grimoire. (You don't fix old
 software like the debian-sec-team does). Therefore it would be a real
risk to run it an a productive machine and stupidity to run it on a
desktop system. And whoever needs it for a PC with no connection to the
Internet would profit much more if you can offer him working
"testing-snapshots" regularly.

Just looking at my MailBox I can see that even you, the developers,
don't care about stable. (408 commits to master grimoire vs 93 to
stable(-rc)).
I propose you to drop it! OpenSource works much better if you do it for
you, not for a possible but almost non-existing user.
If you want you can switch back to this development model if you have
more resources, but currently it doesn't work well.

2) Not sure if it is possible but incremental grimoire update would be
perfect. The download takes up to 5-6 minutes because of the slow server
-connection. (using 2mbit connection, yes i have netselect installed and
enabled)

3) prompt-delay
There are questions that should never be skipped due to this delay. Lets
assume I cast several spells. I would not have a look at the
install/compile log, if everything works fine. Therefore I reduce the
delay not to waste time.
But very often I miss the important configure questions due to the slow
update (see above) or because I don't like to sit here for three hours
to wait for a possible need to interact running cleanse.

4) creating own packages
It is so easy to create own spells but so frustrating to get them into
the grimoire. I stopped offering my own spells because I once did and
there was so little reaction. Why should I bother you.

5) reporting bugs
Bugs can occur everywhere. Nobody should be blamed. But it would be nice
if you could offer a better bug-reporting-system.
Bugzilla looks so old and doesn't invite to work with. In addition all
these different options are confusing and cannot be answered intuitively
(I prefer the trac-ticketsystem, it is also easier to review how it is
fixed)

6) website and doc
I think you know...

7) ledger
"Source Mage Ledger is a client/server based system that collects and
processes
stats about Source Mage GNU/Linux (users, spells, ...).
Don't hesitate to cast smgl-ledger and upload your stats"

Sounds much like a privacy issue. I do not want anybody to know what
software I use and whatever this tool does or might do.



greetings

a user

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