Arch Linux

janentikan

Member

Registered: 2023-04-29

Posts: 1

Ratpoison

I hope this is not too bold of a question, but I'm not sure I understand why ratpoison was removed from the official repositories after all these years being an arch linux staple. What was the deciding factor of this decision, and who made it?

As my arch-journey is continuing, I use less and less programs and am constantly looking for more streamlined solutions, ratpoison being one of them (another one being panda3d, also not an official package which I don't mind so much). It's no problem to compile such a simple program myself but I really don't get the reasoning here. As a contrasting example, discord is in the official repositories. I am seriously questioning if our philosophies are still aligned here and it's making me very sad.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,169

Re: Ratpoison

Things are in the repos when someone wants to maintain them in the repos. If nobody wants to maintain it and it's not required by something else, it gets dropped to the AUR.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,330

Website

Re: Ratpoison

There is no real guiding philosophy to arch linux, and anything that there is just descriptive, not normative.  The "philosophy" of a distro is an emergent property of the people active in the community.  Communities change, people come and go, and the "philosophy" thus evolves.

Ratpoison no longer being maintained in the main repos but discord being included is - I believe - a very accurate microcosmic representation of the evolution of this community.  FWIW, I likely feel about this much like you seem to - but the community is not here to serve us, we were just along for the ride.

FYI, these forums are on the chopping block to be replaced and it looks like discord will be the replacement.

edit: mixed up discord w/ discourse.  The latter is the leading candidate for the replacement of the forums.

Last edited by Trilby (2023-04-29 16:08:12)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,257

Re: Ratpoison

FYI, these forums are on the chopping block to be replaced and it looks like discord will be the replacement.

*sigh*

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,169

Re: Ratpoison

FYI, these forums are on the chopping block to be replaced and it looks like discord will be the replacement.

I heard talk of discourse, not discord. Discord a real-time chat, not a forum.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,330

Website

Re: Ratpoison

Oops, sorry - yes, I had the two confused.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman