I would like Debian to stop shipping XScreenSaver

[esp7]

apt-get purge xscreensaver
apt-get install light-locker

and let's move on

[stevepusser]

I think that debian should include newest xscreensaver in stable distribution, I have already tried it and it works great, there is no bugs and I am aggree that debian should update most of his software.

Debian does update the software--just not as often as some people would like.

But if you want newer versions, there are other distros or repositories based on Stable that fulfil that desire, including the xscreensaver package.

[spacex]

Try to think about the last part of this sentence with the tractor analogy in mind: "people coming to a tractor dealership looking for a sedan or a minivan or other street car anyway".

That's the error. Debian is a distribution meant to be stable and low maintenance, people looking for the next long awaited feature of their apps are simply in the wrong place.
Now, I understand why one that doesn't fit in the Debian's system would want to change things, but why would Debian and all those who, on the other hand, are with Debian exactly because of the way it is, want to change things?

==> Well, but perhaps you have read me wrong. Because my only issue with this, is that Debian does nothing to tell these users off, before they encounter a sour-puss in the community that tells them to go elsewhere if they want it new and shining. After they've already wasted time in Debian.

And no, alternatives exist. What about Ubuntu and Mint or openSuse and Fedora?
No doctor prescribed Debian to people who want fresher desktops.
If people don't like Ubuntu's (and friends) policies with spyware and other crap like that, wouldn't it make much more sense to try and change Ubuntu's policies rather than mess with Debian's nature?

==> Eh, there are lots of other reasons why I don't like any of the alternatives you are mentioning, and as far as changing the Ubuntu policies, get real

and he pleas everyone to either use a "stable outdated system" or drop his program, but not to change the dependency.

==> You mean like Debian pleas that we all should use a "stable outdated system(Jessie)" or drop Debian and go somewhere else

Actually, I set a different standard for a distribution like Debian, and end-users on Debian. End-users may do whatever to their own system, but Debian shouldn't distribute any programs against the developers wishes, regardless what it is licencensed under. If I was a developer that received treatment like this, I would do a hell of a lot more than just putting in a polite warning as a time-bomb.

But WE disagree because you all seem to mean that just because you have the right to do something, it's automatically right to go ahead and just do it. I for one are not only limited by laws and regulations, I am also limited by morals and ethics. If something feels wrong, then it is wrong, no matter what any license says.

Anyways, it will do Debian no good to piss off good developers. Not in the long run.


Bye

[edbarx]

The first day I uploaded my network manager on git.devuan.org, it was immediately forked by another developer. Should I grumble and curse?

A license permitting the forking and editing of code is what it is: anyone who wants to restrict users from modifying code should publish only closed source projects or at least close source only the code he/she doesn't want to be modified.

Publishing source under certain license terms and then unexpectedly turning to users to refrain from some of those license terms, is also unethical, as it can be interpreted as deceptive on the part of the publisher/developer.

[spacex]

The first day I uploaded my network manager on git.devuan.org, it was immediately forked by another developer. Should I grumble and curse?

A license permitting the forking and editing of code is what it is: anyone who wants to restrict users from modifying code should publish only closed source projects or at least close source only the code he/she doesn't want to be modified.

Publishing source under certain license terms and then unexpectedly turning to users to refrain from some of those license terms, is also unethical, as it can be interpreted as deceptive on the part of the publisher/developer.

I don't disagree with this. Forking it is fine. Also that users change the code. But when you redistribute the package with those changes, it has to be clear that it is a modified version, and that the original developer in no way can be responsible for the package anymore. Nor be expected to offer any kind of support for such modified versions.

[dilberts_left_nut]

http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/c ... _changelog

[No_windows]

I got the update, and was surprised, as I thought I had completely removed it from my system. I must have just disabled it.

[spacex]

http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/c ... _changelog

As most Debian users ever will read that. They still would bug the developer no matter what.

[dust hill resident]

This is a bloody disgrace. It's PC gone mad. Debian should update XScreenSaver or immediately cease distributing it.

[michael@debian]

If Debian stops shipping with XScreenSaver, how am I supposed to watch the dolphins swim?

[RoyFokker]

I just found out about this controversy, late, from this detailed list about the why linux sucks on the desktop:
https://itvision.altervista.org/why.lin ... -2017.html

Btw, I don't think anyone linked to it, but here jwz excorciates the whining Debian cultists on their own buglist:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=819703
Haha so funny to read the Debian cultists and kool aid sippers comment on how evil Jamie Zawinski is! In his blog in this post he excorciated Debian's crappy philosophy:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-woul ... ent-166433

... Getting email about a years-old already-fixed bug is frustrating if it's because the user was simply too lazy to upgrade. But what I think you have all recently learned here is that thats not what's going on. It's not that they're lazy, it's that Debian has gone out of their way to make it difficult for naive users to run code that does not contain years-old bugs.

Even if I just ignored their reports -- or worse, pointed them the delightful and charming people who populate the Debian bug system to have them ignore them for me -- there are still users who are trying to use my works, and who are experiencing bugs that they should not have to experience because they were fixed years ago. That's extremely frustrating. "I already fixed this, thanks again, Debian!"

And this is by Debian's "design".

...

Or let us look at another person who has an independent functioning brain comment on what Stable in the bizarro Debian world actually means:

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41085.html
Debian ships an operating system that prides itself on stability. The Debian definition of stability is a very specific one - rather than referring to how often the software crashes or misbehaves, it refers to how often the software changes behaviour. Debian is very reluctant to upgrade software that is part of a stable release, to the extent that developers will attempt to backport individual security fixes to the version they shipped rather than upgrading to a release that contains all those security fixes but also adds a new feature. The argument here is that the new release may also introduce new bugs, and Debian's users desire stability (in the "things don't change" sense) more than new features. ...

Omg someone with an independent, autonomous brain on here who can exit the gravity of crusty Debian dogma:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 15#p612799
....

Not that I need it, because I can use testing/unstable, but you can't present something as outdated as Jessie to desktop users, and then warn them about testing/unstable. In that case, Debian should warn desktop users against Debian all together. Actually, I think that Debian should divide into two different releases. One conservative server-edition, and one more current desktop-edition.

[dilberts_left_nut]

Well, "crusty Debian dogma" is the reason Debian is one of the longest lived and widest used distro's there is. Along with the fact that it is 'upstream' to the largest number of child distro's and forks, very largely due to the reliability and consistency of the unstable/testing/stable release model.

If you don't like / agree with the Debian 'stable' release model, there is a distro out there for you (likely based on a curated collection of Debian sid/testing packages).

[Head_on_a_Stick]

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41085.html

Debian's users desire stability (in the "things don't change" sense) more than new features. ...

I agree with this, the unchanging API is very important to me and one of the main reasons for using Debian.

@RoyFokker, please stop trolling these boards and go enjoy your Windows system instead, your posts are tedious in the extreme...

[debiman]

i am using xlock now. seriously. it has the only marquee screensaver that does what i want: display command output in a way that doesn't burn in my monitor, i.e. saves my screen.
none of the xscreensaver text savers were configurable in a way that satisfied me. too much twisting & twirling, too much GL, and then it fails with something as simple as text color.

not that i was ever affected by that silly ego-bug (archlinux on desktop), but there's quite few things that annoyed me.

i saw this comment come up:

there is not a reasonable alternative that can take all the zillion modules available for xscreensaver. I would have ditched it for something more modern ages ago were it not for that fact, if you want nice screensavers that can do things like allow you to play videos using mplayer as your screensaver, you literally have no other choice (as far as i know, please somebody prove me wrong...)

so i'm proving it wrong now - one can achieve this with a package called xss - it includes a few binaries that allow you to start all the screensaver programs that come with xscreensaver, and those from "The Really Slick Screensavers port to GLX" (rss-glx), and why not an mplayer video, too. anything. any command, any script.

xss is not in debian stable repos.
but there are others:
xautolock
xss-lock
xlock

[RoyFokker]

@Head_on_a_Stick:

Herr, derr, "unchanging API"? This is what Linus says about the suck in his own playground:

DebConf 14: QA with Linus Torvalds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8#t=357

"No distro has ever got distro packaging right, they don't have a stable ABI/API for application developers. To make a linux binary is a major pain in the ass, you make a binary for Fedora 19, Fedora 20, Debian stable ... You cannot make binaries because the software is so old"

Haha! Even Linus says that choosing between hundreds of different distros is only the freedom to suck and fail!

[RU55EL]

[edit 12/13/16 10:00AM]
My original post was removed in order to drop the issue. But, because Mor replied, and out of repect for him, I restored the post.
[/edit]

[...]The way I see these attempts to change how Debian works, is like seeing someone trying to change -say- a tractor into a commuting vehicle.
Let's imagine Debian as a tractor, happily spending its days working the fields with plows and harvesters, then someone comes along, sees it and likes it because it is after all a good machine, that someone then starts using it even to go to his office downtown, but commuting is not as smooth. So he thinks that having different tires and maybe a bigger cabin with backseats for the kids would make it a much better and more practical ride, along with a few modifications to the aerodynamics and maybe different gear ratios, and the shocks and a nicer body, maybe a new paintjob.
Yeah, that's much better now, but it no longer is the tractor it was in the beginning.

You can even picture the analogy the other way around with Debian being a sedan and someone trying to use it in the fields, the point is the same: Debian is what it is and people use it exactly because it is Stable and "outdated" (aka very low maintenance) and that's its forte.
If you change it because you want it to be more apt (pun intended) for a different demographic, then by all means do, make you own distro like many have already and be done with it.
Nobody is forcing users to have Debian as their distro. If they like it but want it different then they want something else. And again, there are literally hundreds of choices out there.[...]

This is a very good point!

[RoyFokker]

No, it is nothing like your commuter car and tractor analogy which only makes sense to Debian zealots. The linux fail distributions all have stupid arbitrary ways of delineating what software is stable and is available to end users. Those with the developer manpower like debian waste massive resources scanning upstream software projects to "backport" bugfixes. In this case one of the upstream developers fought back! And it was funny.

On every other operating system userland developers who are in a better position determine what is stable and/or users have the freedom choose which linux fail distributions deprive them of.

Another funny incident a Debian developer whining because an upstream software project added a line of code just to insult him:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=477454

[mor]

I imagine you were referring to something RU55EL might have said in the post that I see was edited after you posted yours, however the tractor analogy seemed familiar enough to make me read back a few posts and remember I wrote it.

Regardless, and since I'm here, I would like to comment on what you said.

Of course in a way the concept of stability in Debian makes sense to "its zealots" because Debian is geared towards a particular range of uses. Those who fit within the spectrum are more or less fine with the way it is, others are always left wanting it to be different.

The point of the analogy was exactly that of helping even non-zealots of stability, make sense of the concept of stability by way of using a different set of tools to explain the absurdity of the complaint of Debian being obsolete.
Talking about tractors and sedans is in fact incidental and you can replace those with other tools that belong to similar categories but are ultimately designed to be used in fundamentally different scenarios, such as, for example, toasters and ovens or TVs and projectors or band saws and table saws or, to get back to vehicles, sport bikes and dirt bikes.

If you can grasp the notion that complaining about -say- the Ducati Panigale not being good enough in mud is idiotic, you should also understand how complaining about Debian being a Stable (aka unchanging, unsurprising) system is a misguided endeavor because just as sport bikes are designed to go fast on road and not at all on mud, Debian is designed to be stable, unchanging, predictable, low maintenance, no fuss.
Nobody is preventing anybody from wanting to use Debian for any type of use that doesn't necessarily fit the bill, just as nobody is preventing anyone from trying to do something like this on their sport/road bike, but complaining about Debian being obsolete is exactly like wanting Ducati to change the Panigale so it can jump over banks and cliffs and handle mud, because that's what you want in a bike.

Bye and take care.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

https://rideapart.com/articles/ducati-1 ... -exclusive

scnr...

[HuangLao]