[Pkg-mutt-maintainers] Bug#870635: mutt package is not using the official mutt tarball

[Jonathan Dowland]

On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 10:35:52AM -0800, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:
>Yes, I can understand the desire to sweep the whole mess under the rug.

That's not what I am proposing at all. I'm suggesting we put our users
first, and on balance, I think switching neomutt users to mutt would not
be the best outcome.  If I thought we should just ignore this I'd
propose that we do nothing. And clearing up what we are actually
packaging would address the complaint you brought to us. Please try to
be less hostile.

>I have an alternative proposal.  How about if Mutt 1.9.1, with just the
>basic changes required by Debian, is uploaded as the next mutt package.
>Then the team can orphan the package.

That would only address testing/unstable and future Debian releases, and
not current stable, although I'm not sure yet what we can do about that
within the confines of our normal rules and processes. It would also be
unethical to upload software that we had no intention of ever actually
supporting properly.

Finally it would switch all existing users from one software to another
unexpectedly: just because we did that once doesn't mean we should do it
again. How important that consideration is, on balance, to be discussed.

>Since Debian has basically taken away all my work

No we haven't. Please try harder to engage with us in a constructive and
less hostile manner, and stop assuming bad faith. We are only having
this conversation at all for your sake.

> and given NeoMutt the privilege of using the mutt package to establish
> itself in Debian and all its derivatives, how about you let mutt
> package users actually *use* my work for once before you move on.

For most of the package's life in Debian, mutt has indeed been mutt. We
can't speak for derivatives, and we can't be responsible for them
either.

> Establish neomutt as a separate package, and let the users who really
> care install that for themselves.

IMHO it would be of course ideal if we had neomutt in a neomutt package,
and mutt in a mutt package. But it's a matter of how we get there from
where we are now.

>> If you are suggesting that the package name "mutt" is going to be real
>> "mutt" in future, then what happens to existing users?
>
>Horrors!  They might accidentally use an actual Mutt release!  They
>might discover that 1.9.1 is actually pretty good, and that a fair chunk
>of the improvements they thought came from NeoMutt might have come from
>Mutt instead!

You've come as close as you've managed at pitching to us we actually
package mutt here. As I outlined in my earlier mails, I think the
workload of maintaining both is impractical with the volunteer resource
available right now. So it is probably a matter of one or the other, and
neomutt has the advantage of already being packaged and used. That's an
advantage but not a slam-dunk.

Given that, I'm surprised you've been so hostile. Do you expect to bully
us into doing what you want? Please do bear in mind that another
important consideration for packaging something is a healthy
relationship with upstream.


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⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Jonathan Dowland
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://jmtd.net
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