Re: [ITP] astrometry.net-0.38-1

[Ken Brown <kbrown@cornell.edu>]

On 11/8/2011 2:19 AM, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> Cygwin is supposed to be like a Linux distro.  Including packages which
> come with Linux distros is a no-brainer.  Including a large, specialized
> package which is not commonly found on Linux and which has a small user
> base is not a no-brainer.
[...]
> Given the fact that the votes needed to trickle in over the course of
> more than a month, it seems that most people don't feel very strongly
> about including this package.  I understand that the OP wants to have a
> convenient way of distributing it to the small number of people who need
> it but I don't think that is necessarily a good enough reason for the
> package to occupy disk space and bandwidth on sourceware.org and
> mirrors, for potential package support to show up in the cygwin mailing
> list, and for someone to take time to upload updates to sourceware.org.
>
> I was wondering if anyone else felt like I did about this package.  If
> it hadn't required many weeks to get approval + more weeks to get
> packaging worked out, it would have gone in without comment from me.
> Since it did drag on and required multiple pleading messages to keep
> things moving, it certainly seems like there isn't a lot of enthusiasm
> for getting this in.
>
> The bottom line is that I was trying to ask why people voted +1.  If it
> was just to "help the guy out" then that's not a really good reason for
> the package to be in the distro.  If it was because people thought this
> was "kinda cool..." then that would imply that there was more thought
> involved.

I was the last person to vote +1, and I have to admit that it was mostly 
to help the guy out.  I regret that I didn't give it more thought.  Now 
that I've seen this discussion, I am no longer in favor of including the 
package in the distro.  I think it would make more sense for the OP to 
set up his own repository.

Ken