Re: Wrapping long lines (Was Re: FAQ update suggestion for "I'm having basic problems with find. Why?")

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 11:38:11AM -0500, DePriest, Jason R. wrote:
>On Friday, July 09, 2004 10:39 AM, Christopher Faylor wrote
>
>> On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 11:27:55AM +0100, William Blunn wrote:
>>> I have set up several web-based systems which do this, and it wasn't
>>> hard.
>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 06:26:27PM -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>>> Finally, you (Igor) are right that we are not going to change the
>>>> sourceware.org software to wrap in any other fashion than it does
>>>> now. 
>> 
>> sourceware.org, the home of cygwin.com, is a technical site.  The
>> mailing lists that it sponsors are for technical discussions.
>> 
>> In these discussions, the formatting of messages could conceivably
>> actually *mean something*.  It's entirely possible that someone meant
>> to use 997 characters in one of the lines of their message to
>> illustrate a point or even to provide a patch.
>> 
>> So, I am not going to be spending my time hacking on the mailing list
>> archiving software to add a special exception for cygwin mailing list
>> denizens who want to forget about hitting enter and then read their
>> messages on the web.  If the use of <pre> in the archives causes you
>> problems, then please suffer in silence or find some other archiving
>> site.  Maybe gmane would work better.
>> 
>> Please do not insinuate that there is some technical or laziness
>> barrier here.  You are perched precariously on your soapbox and
>> apparently haven't really given the issue any real contextual thought
>> other than "It's easy to do.  They should do it."
>> 
>> Is this clear?  There will be no changes to the web site archiving. 
>> So, if this is what is causing everyone grave concern, then maybe
>> this puts this issue to rest.
>
>I always thought that the 'Because We're Just Mean' slogan was a joke.
>Well apparently I was wrong.
>I cannot believe the level of posturing I am seeing from the
>Cygwin-elite.
>
>I live in Memphis, TN, the town where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot
>and killed for trying to change they way things were.
>
>If he and others had simply said, "Blacks and whites are separate but
>equal.  That's the way it has always been and that is how it should stay
>because it works.  It doesn't matter if true equality has merits and
>would benefit some people; everybody else will just have to get over
>it," where would The South (that's what it's called down here) be today?
>
>Where would the United States be?

If you really want to continue discussing this, then you really should
stick to the topic rather than making inane "Where would the United
States be?" analogies.

Stick to the point, please.

You do not seem to understand that this entire thread boils down to "We
want cgf to work on the mailing list archiving software".  I am saying
that I have no interest in doing so.  It is as simple as that.

I did state in another message that the current arrangement is site
policy for sourceware.org, anyway, and I suggested a potential method
for getting this changed.  Rather than going on about how shocked and
outraged you are by the awful meanness of people who don't want to spend
lots of time working on mailing list archiving software for you, I think
your ends would be better served by talking to the people who
collectively run the sourceware.org site.  You will have to convince
project leaders from gcc, gdb, eCos, etc.  that changing the way
archiving works is a good idea and, if you want your ideas to really
seem substantive, you might want to research how the current arrangement
works and offer patches or at least details on how things could be
changed.

Of course, even if everyone in the overseers mailing list agrees that it
is a wonderful idea not to use <pre>, you'll still have to find one of
them to make the necessary changes.  That could be tricky since we all
have jobs, all contribute heavily to the free software community, and,
perhaps most importantly, presumably are not particularly bothered by
this issue.

Good luck.

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