Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?

[Martin List-Petersen <martin+debian-devel@list-petersen.net>]

On Mon, 2004-05-03 at 18:04, Hans Reiser wrote:
> Martin List-Petersen wrote:
> 
> >On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 22:55, Don Armstrong wrote:
> >  
> >
> >>>>Furthermore, the list of credits are still included (to my knowledge)
> >>>>in /usr/share/doc/resierfsprogs/README.gz.
> >>>>        
> >>>>
> >>>oh, well, that is almost as good as putting them on the dark side of
> >>>the moon....  a credit read by no one has no meaning.
> >>>      
> >>>
> >
> >I don't know what you are reading once you've installed a new program on
> >your system, but the README, README.Debian and the man-pages are for me
> >usually the FIRST place, since it might hold valuable information and
> >safe me the trouble, which i may have, if i didn't had read it.
> >  
> >
> I never read these (except the man pages) unless the install fails in 
> some way (I read the NVIDIA ones many times....), and neither do 99% of 
> real users, including 99% of reiserfs users.  As a user, I can handle 
> the distro flashing information on my screen as it installs and I can 
> read that, or printing credits when I select a particular package for 
> the install, and I can handle a tool printing credits when it starts up 
> (ala mkreiser4) for me to read, but going through a list of 3000 
> packages after the install completes and reading their readmes and 
> credits files just ain't gonna happen.

Probably not for each and every after the installation of your operating
system, but let's take mkreiserfs. Everyone has at some point asked
himself why there are two formats to choose (3.5 and 3.6)

Thats something you definatly go for the man pages or readme for.

And if you install packages (single) at a later time, you would often go
for the README. Same situation is, if you are installing from source.

> As a developer, I can probably be talked out of anything that makes the 
> install slower or more awkward or adds more clicks.  If there is another 
> paradigm in place for displaying info about the packages during the 
> install (I encourage you to have one), I would most likely be happy to 
> conform to that.

I think actually showing credit's, README's and other important things during install is exactly
the right way of going, instead of showing them any time you are using the software.

My personal opinion (and i speak only for myself here) would be to have it come up with the default
screen (as any Debian package does, if there is something important) and that might include the credits.
You would just have to accept, that this popup can be disabled for automatic install, because an system
administrator, that anyway saw your credits the first time he installed it, does want to hit enter a
couple of times during unattended (as the name says) install.

/Martin
--
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.  Second marriage is 
the triumph of hope over experience.