Tales of the Raccoon Fink

You know, sometimes I just don't understand people. One of the other core Fink administrators got this e-mail a month or so back:

On Jun 15, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Dave Vasilevsky wrote:
[misc fixes]
Tell me how it goes!
On Jun 15, 2005, at 2:47 AM, moldy icon wrote:
it built and installed fine. Thank You very much.
maybe this is some kind of general fink problem
rather than anything to do with your package specifically
because my fink is offering me that same 0.0.11-11 version
of all the ggz packages... using FinkCommander.
it can't be affecting just me, can it?
I've done scanpackages, cleanup, and index several times.
I wonder what else is not being shown?
here's another unrelated question: why do the fink people burden us by forcing
us to build almost every unstable (and stable) package from scratch? The i386
people using linux never have to build unstable packages. They never have to
build anything... there's ALWAYS a binary of everything for them! Every fink
package maintainer has created a binary... just to test their package. Why force
us to build it? We don't have much diversity in the Mac OS X world... fink could
easily separate G3 G4 G5 the same way it identifies darwin/x86. I think the fink
bigwigs (especially "mister whacko elitist" ranger rick) are deliberately
punishing us. Imagine the incredible CPU cycles they're costing the Mac OS X
community making us build packages for which they could easily provide binary
debs. What's your theory? For example, did they tell you NOT to give us a
binary? Are you blocked from this somehow? I'm just wondering.
I think I'll post this question to the group. Wanna bet they avoid the question
and pretend this issue isn't an incredibly obvious deliberately-created
annoyance we're not allowed to discuss?
moldy icon

Any of you who know me know that I do my damnedest to help people and to not be "elitist" (although I can be a whacko sometimes <grin>).

Every fink package maintainer has created a binary... just to test their package. Why force us to build it?

Because while we have a huge user base, our maintainership is a tiny fraction of the size of other linux distros, we just plain don't have the resources to make it happen. We don't have a *secure* place to build binaries. Even if we did, if I built binaries on my development box, they'd link against stuff that's not even released yet, and so would be useless to you, the user.

It's not that we haven't thought of this stuff. We would love for there to be an unstable binary dist, but no one has the time or resources to make it happen (yet). I know there's been work to do so, but it's slow going.

The most frustrating thing in open-source is that while a ton of work goes into making things happen, there are a lot of people who only care about what they want out of it, without giving any regard to the people that made it happen. They are totally ungrateful for the time that has been donated towards making useful things for other people. It's seeing letters like this that make me completely sympathize with people who say "screw it!" and just give up.

I'm not going to give up just yet, though. There are plenty of people who do appreciate the work that goes into making any open-source project happen, and they're the ones who make it worthwhile.

So if you made it all the way to the end of this rant, please, think about the open-source software you use right at this moment, and send an e-mail to those responsible for it, telling them how much you appreciate it. I assure you, it'll do more than just make their day.