[SUSPECTED SPAM] Re: Install package for Ubuntu

[Ethan Blanton]

João Pinto spake unto us the following wisdom:
> 2 - If you choose to ignore the 11K users which have downloaded until now,
> then it is still working.

I don't understand your argument -- have downloaded what, your
package?  I'm glad that it's popular, if that's what you're saying.

> If you tell me that I should first check with the distro maintainers or you
> (gaim developers) to validate or improve the package quality I would agree
> with you, it is a bit different from the "we don't care about your package"
> that I felt on your answer.

You are welcome to distribute the package yourself, but our position,
as stated before, is that we do not accept third-party binary
packages.  We can check (to some extent) each individual package, but
this is not a scalable solution.  If you were to become involved with
the Pidgin project and interact with us on a daily basis, we would of
course revisit this position.  I hope you can understand why we cannot
accept binary packages from just anyone on the Internet who professes
to offer them.  You may be a swell guy (and I assume you are), and you
may not be doing anything to adulterate the packages, but we have no
way of knowing that.

(Let me make it clear that the package adulteration which has gone on
in the past has, to my knowledge, never been malicious.)

We are not trying to be unreasonable here, but when you have tens of
thousands of downloads *per day*, as we do, you have to have some idea
of precisely what is going out in those downloads.  We achieve this by
shipping only un-patched binaries from release versions, and providing
these packages only for those systems for which a developer or regular
contributor can produce binaries.

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
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