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

[Kevin J. McCarthy]

On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 06:59:16PM +0000, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> 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.

And how dare I be hostile, since your opinion seems to be without any
knowledge of what has happened, or of the work that has taken place in
Mutt the last few years under my development.

Incidentally, my comment was intended to be in reference to:

> (The wisdom of having moved the package *to* neomutt at this point is
> irrelevant, because it has happened whether we like it or not.)

> 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.

Yes, I'm aware of the situation of stable.  Antonio has clearly kept me
informed that stable is not possible to remedy.

> It would also be unethical to upload software that we had no intention
> of ever actually supporting properly.

Oh, now Debian is concerned about what is ethical?  If no one cares
about the mutt package, then let it die.  Or let another developer pick
up the package.  But allow that possibility now, not in 3 years after
another release cycle using a transition package.

> 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.

I believe this is an example of false equivalence.  Is unexpectedly
switching *mutt* package users to NeoMutt the same as switching them
back to Mutt?

This is also part of the "sweep the whole mess under the rug" argument
you are perpetuating: "Oh well, we did it.  Can't do anything about it,
can't go back... gosh there's just nothing to do but turn mutt into a
transition package."

> > 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.

Spare me.  We are having this conversation because Debian is violating
my copyright, and I filed an RC bug.  Debian behaved unethically,
reprehensibly, and with extreme disrespect towards me and the Mutt
project.

And, yes, Debian _has_ taken away all my work since 1.6.x, when they
started applying massive patches from the NeoMutt project to my
releases.  I already laid out my viewpoint in this thread:
https://marc.info/?l=mutt-users&m=149880626013418&w=2

This occurred *after* I particularly tried to engage with the Debian
maintainers, triage, and start fixing bugs out of their ticket system.
If you really care, have a talk with them - I emailed them about this
just after that release.  A lot of good that did.

> You've come as close as you've managed at pitching to us we actually
> package mutt here.

> 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.

Please stop speaking as if you are one of the mutt package maintainers.
I don't need to make a pitch to you, and I don't give a toot about a
"healthy relationship" at this point.

The mutt package maintainers made their choice, and ruined the
relationship all on their own.  They had many opportunities to fix it
over the past few releases, but instead doubled and tripled-down,
culminating in the complete tarball swapout.

That needs to be fixed.  I would prefer it not be in a way that removes
Mutt from Debian, but at this point I'm not going to make pitches or
temper my well-justified hostility.

-Kevin
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