A bit of feedback:
The descriptions for various opensuse-related software repositories on the opensuse website[*] are rather disappointing, i.e. a user does not know what these repositories offer. Therefore, it's difficult to know and decide which repository might be worth adding as installation source. This is not such a big problem for experienced opensuse users but it is one in particular for new SuSE users. Just a few examples:
- Packman: Packman offers various additional packages for openSUSE. - Guru: Guru's RPM site contains packages optimized for i686 and x86_64. - suser-jengelh: Various packages from the suser-jengelh repository. - Schiele: More packages for various SUSE releases by Robert Schiele can be found here. Some of them are new packages, some of them are just updated packages from the original SUSE ones, and some just fix bugs when SUSE does not provide these bug fixes. - Scorot: Scorot is another repository with many packages. - suser-oc2pus: Various Packages since Suse 8.2. - suser-liviudm: Various packages by Liviu Damian.
Well, it's not really surprising that the repository "suser-jengelh" contains "various packages from the suser-jengelh repository", isn't it?
I understand that some repositories are huge and thus it's difficult to come up with a better description without going into too much detail.
However, it would be great if the maintainers of those repositories (or somebody else with knowledge what these repositories actually offer) could expand the description and at least mention the categories of software that one might expect when adding the repositories. Maybe someone else has an idea how to improve the current situation...
I am not sure whether this topic belongs here (because it's about community software repositories) or on the opensuse-wiki list (because it's about the website). Anyway, it's a bit of feedback.
Cheers, Th.
[*]http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Thomas Hertweck:
Well, it's not really surprising that the repository "suser-jengelh" contains "various packages from the suser-jengelh repository", isn't it?
This one makes me laugh :D ;), good humor. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
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Thomas Hertweck wrote:
The descriptions for various opensuse-related software repositories on the opensuse website[*] are rather disappointing, i.e. a user does not know what these repositories offer. Therefore, it's difficult to know and decide which repository might be worth adding as installation source. This is not such a big problem for experienced opensuse users but it is one in particular for new SuSE users. Just a few examples:
- Packman: Packman offers various additional packages for openSUSE.
- Guru: Guru's RPM site contains packages optimized for i686 and x86_64.
- suser-jengelh: Various packages from the suser-jengelh repository.
- Schiele: More packages for various SUSE releases by Robert Schiele can be found here. Some of them are new packages, some of them are just updated packages from the original SUSE ones, and some just fix bugs when SUSE does not provide these bug fixes.
- Scorot: Scorot is another repository with many packages.
suser-scorot isn't maintained anymore since quite a while IIRC.
- suser-oc2pus: Various Packages since Suse 8.2.
oc2pus (aka Tony Graffy) moved all his packages to Packman since several months.
- suser-liviudm: Various packages by Liviu Damian.
[...]
I understand that some repositories are huge and thus it's difficult to come up with a better description without going into too much detail.
Indeed. Frankly, it's really difficult to describe Packman and Guru because we have lots of different stuff in there. Multimedia (non-crippled), games, network tools, drivers, KDE themes, ... ...
A bit of everything, really. Typically, packages end up in Packman or Guru instead of the distribution because the distribution is not open to non-Novell employees. The openSUSE Build Service is quite recent (both Packman and Guru exist since several years). And there are a lot of packages that may not be hosted in the Build Service for reasons (pretty much) everyone knows of (ktorrent with DHT, amarok with MP4 + MySQL + PostgreSQL support, libxine1 uncrippled, mad, ...)
Could be the start of a description but... would also have to check whether explaining that on the wiki is OK from a legal point-of-view.
cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/%7Epbleser/ /\ pascal.bleser@skynet.be guru@unixtech.be __v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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Pascal Bleser wrote:
Could be the start of a description but... would also have to check whether explaining that on the wiki is OK from a legal point-of-view.
simply say "more uptodate packages in multimedia environment"
jdd
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jdd wrote:
Pascal Bleser wrote:
Could be the start of a description but... would also have to check whether explaining that on the wiki is OK from a legal point-of-view.
simply say "more uptodate packages in multimedia environment"
Which is as useful as the current description
- -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/%7Epbleser/ /\ pascal.bleser@skynet.be guru@unixtech.be __v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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Pascal Bleser wrote:
[...] suser-scorot isn't maintained anymore since quite a while IIRC. [...] oc2pus (aka Tony Graffy) moved all his packages to Packman since several months.
Shouldn't these repositories then be removed from the website?
[...] Frankly, it's really difficult to describe Packman and Guru because we have lots of different stuff in there. Multimedia (non-crippled), games, network tools, drivers, KDE themes, ... ...
A bit of everything, really.
Yes, it's really difficult to come up with a proper description. That's why I asked if somebody has a better way to explain it. Somehow and somewhere mentioning multimedia could be a good idea...
[...] Could be the start of a description but... would also have to check whether explaining that on the wiki is OK from a legal point-of-view.
ACK. However, I can't see a problem if, for instance, the Packman description contains the general information that a user can find multimedia stuff in this repository.
The situation might be different if you want to mention that there are non-crippled versions which possibly violate patents etc. By the way, there are links on the opensuse website that point to these repositories - could that also cause legal problems? I know that the German website www.heise.de had some problems some time ago because they had a link on their website pointing to some software officially considered as illegal (this software bypasses DVD protection).
Cheers, Th. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Den Monday 28 May 2007 20:53:00 skrev Thomas Hertweck:
Pascal Bleser wrote:
[...] suser-scorot isn't maintained anymore since quite a while IIRC. [...] oc2pus (aka Tony Graffy) moved all his packages to Packman since several months.
Shouldn't these repositories then be removed from the website?
Removing repos that don't build for 10.2 would sure clean up a lot. Also removing repos for End-Of-Life versions would help.
I'm more than willing to do the work if there are no feisty objections. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Martin Schlander wrote:
Removing repos that don't build for 10.2 would sure clean up a lot. Also removing repos for End-Of-Life versions would help.
I'm more than willing to do the work if there are no feisty objections.
Why would there be a Feisty objection? We use openSUSE, not Ubuntu. ;-) :-P --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Den Tuesday 29 May 2007 00:05:02 skrev Martin Schlander:
I'm more than willing to do the work if there are no feisty objections.
Didn't hear any objections. Removed all repos that don't build for 10.2, and removed all references to repos for unsupported versions. Much cleaner now.
http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories
.. that should only leave the problem regarding (un)clear descriptions --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Martin Schlander wrote:
[...]
Didn't hear any objections. Removed all repos that don't build for 10.2, and removed all references to repos for unsupported versions. Much cleaner now.
Thanks Martin, I'll try to have a look at it... (too many things to do *sigh*)
http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories
.. that should only leave the problem regarding (un)clear descriptions
Well, this can only be improved by somebody who knows the repositories very well. Any volunteers? ;-)
Take care, Th. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
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Thomas Hertweck wrote: [...]
By the way, there are links on the opensuse website that point to these repositories - could that also cause legal problems? I know that the German website www.heise.de had some problems some time ago because they had a link on their website pointing to some software officially considered as illegal (this software bypasses DVD protection).
We're all very aware of that case and that's the reason for lots and lots of issues, such as not having the Packman repository proposed as a repository out-of-the-box in YaST2 (disabled, but "clickable"), having information about packages to install for non-crippled multimedia support that may not be on opensuse.org (it's on opensuse-community.org instead), etc....
Having a link to Packman on that one page on the wiki has been cleared by Novell's legal dept though so.. I guess it's fine ;)
But that pathetic legal decision in Germany has had huge and painful consequences for many, including us.
cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/%7Epbleser/ /\ pascal.bleser@skynet.be guru@unixtech.be __v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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On 2007-05-28 23:05, Pascal Bleser wrote:
<snip>
But that pathetic legal decision in Germany has had huge and painful consequences for many, including us.
I still think we need a global challenge to any law which prevents any person from making a (legal) backup copy of his/her copyrighted material -- literally force every country to honour its obligations under the Berne Copyright Convention, which does not in any way restrict a user to an "approved" operating system.
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The Monday 2007-05-28 at 23:18 -0600, Darryl Gregorash wrote:
But that pathetic legal decision in Germany has had huge and painful consequences for many, including us.
I still think we need a global challenge to any law which prevents any person from making a (legal) backup copy of his/her copyrighted material -- literally force every country to honour its obligations under the Berne Copyright Convention, which does not in any way restrict a user to an "approved" operating system.
AFAIK, you can do a copy of an encrypted dvd, for example, without decrypting it, using decss o equivalent, provided it fits into the destination media. Just copy the iso image, or the files.
Decryption is need to play them, however.
It is not a copy prevention scheme, regardless of what they say. But that is just one of the problems preventing having full multimedia, legally, in linux.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R.
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Andrew Dorney -
Carlos E. R. -
Darryl Gregorash -
jdd -
Martin Schlander -
mesmero -
Pascal Bleser -
Thomas Hertweck