This user has been submitting questionnable ebuilds to GURU lately. https://github.com/gentoo/guru/commits?author=vitaly-zdanevich I don't think these ebuilds are malware or harmful, just useless and I feel they don't belong in GURU Here are some examples: Ebuilds that just download an ISO to /opt: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=470cf060b5b0fac0d7c84e54bad34b9b577f1fe5 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=0a7b62b8af7b86d42f95d364df01fc2b5dbab240 Windows game demos: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=ac114ffa3028a6d64188eda0a965a0834d9f5887 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=4645101d0e6acca8664f78abe13b2c583ed6a036 https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=43cc8ffab5027662c7bdf1d80ccce4a2c73d0f87 Full Windows game: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=8a0256fc10f794976a79fdf3685b9e952422785c With regards to the ISOs, they literally just download some .ISO to /opt, in my opinion this is completely useless and does not belong in an ebuild, let alone GURU. With regards to the games, not sure what are the implications of this from a legal standpoint, particularly the full one. Beyond that, I'm not sure if Wine games belong in GURU? (This is not a rhetorical question) P.S. going back a few days & further this user seems to be a good contributor to GURU overall, at least from commit messages, so they are not *just* putting up the above. Reproducible: Sometimes
Adding this discussion on this commit on GitHub since it's relevant: https://github.com/gentoo/guru/commit/43cc8ffab5027662c7bdf1d80ccce4a2c73d0f87
New game added today: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=c7e792b71fa134334738778f3cf8128b7a4d94cc
Hi > particularly the full one I know about copyrights, I added only legal software - demos and freeware games.
> Beyond that, I'm not sure if Wine games belong in GURU? Why not? It just works - the game is runnable with a single command.
> just useless and I feel they don't belong in GURU But GURU already had folders games-* These games are important for me, I love them, I played them many years ago, and want to share theme, mostly demos because of copyrights - a few hours of good gameplay is also good.
My comment about uselessness was specifically regarding the ISOs, not the games. As for the games, it's true there are other games in ::guru and ::gentoo but AFAIK not Wine games (Windows games pulling Wine as dependency), but if no one has any opinion on that, I don't either, I was just mostly raising the questing if this is appropriate or not. Since no one else has commented I will close this bug, sorry for the noise.
(In reply to Julien from comment #6) > My comment about uselessness was specifically regarding the ISOs, not the > games. > > As for the games, it's true there are other games in ::guru and ::gentoo but > AFAIK not Wine games (Windows games pulling Wine as dependency), but if no > one has any opinion on that, I don't either, I was just mostly raising the > questing if this is appropriate or not. > > Since no one else has commented I will close this bug, sorry for the noise. I was just waiting for Vitaly to respond. Vitaly, you appear to be using ::guru as a personal repository. You shouldn't add everything ever, just things which others are likely to find useful. Ideally after you have daily driven the ebuild for a bit, not immediately.
> just things which others are likely to find useful Yes, of course, I love to share useful stuff. > Ideally after you have daily driven the ebuild for a bit, not immediately Yes, I test them before pushing. My current project for the ebuild is https://www.thedarkmod.com/main/ - just recently found this great free and open source game, playing with it. I will pack all maps, its around 16 GB, and will upload to archive.org for SRC. And demo of the first FarCry when I will finish it.
...and I have work-in-progress ebuild for https://flox.dev - with dev from that company we are doing that.
Other people need to find them useful too. Please don't add every single game demo you personally like to guru. You can use your own repository for that.
I think many of the ebuilds added shouldn't be in guru. If you want, we can help you setup a overlay. Repackaged tarballs can become suspicious (yeah, xz-utils backdoor reminded all of us of the risks). Most of the games and similar don't seem me useful for most developers/users.
This is content without any build steps or any need to be installed into a special location. Your ebuilds do not offer advantages over just downloading and unpacking it.
(In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #4) > > Beyond that, I'm not sure if Wine games belong in GURU? > > Why not? It just works - the game is runnable with a single command. This is better managed by software like PlayOnLinux or Lutris.
> Other people need to find them useful too (comment 10) > Repackaged tarballs can become suspicious (comment 11) > My legality remarks linked here (comment 1) Others have summarized most of my issues with these game demos. Please consider removing them from GURU, Vitaly.
> Other people need to find them useful too Freeware games with high rating and demos of great games are useful. > Most of the games and similar don't seem me useful for most developers/users. Most packages are not useful for most users. > Your ebuilds do not offer advantages over just downloading and unpacking it. * Without the useless integrated installer * Why do we have package managers at all? Its not only about dependencies - also for ability to find some software, even if installing is simple - looks like half of the ebuilds are 10 lines, for example Python packages. * These games ebuilds are tested by me - if something is not running on my machine - I am not adding this. I am surprised to see that you do not like adding of more games ~in existing folders~ games-strategy, games-rpg, games-fps. This is not only games as games - they can be used as benchmarks, to validate the work of 3D, wine, Vulkan, video drivers. > This is better managed by software like PlayOnLinux or Lutris. For what, if it already works, without that dependencies? For example Ubuntu - see, that have many games https://snapcraft.io/search?category=games
It's also misleading to add such ebuilds to guru. If they were in some overlay called e.g. "wine-games", users would at least know they are not native games before installing them.
> If they were in some overlay called e.g. "wine-games", users would at least know they are not native games before installing them. This is not important nowadays - it just works, with high settings and good performance. Wine did a great job for the last few years. Some companies even officially support their Windows games under Wine, see https://worldoftanks.eu/en/content/soft/pc_programs/1311/ The experience is the same as with native games, and sometimes, for modern games for Windows - FPS in Linux under Wine is higher. When it works. Gentoo could be the best Linux distribution for games - because here we can compile with -march=native and build minimal system.
(In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #17) > This is not important nowadays This is not true. Many people will want to install games natively, not through a compatibility layer like Wine which pulls in a bunch of dependencies, and sometimes requires debugging to make things work. > https://worldoftanks.eu/en/content/soft/pc_programs/1311/ Not that it is relevant to this ticket, but from the very first line from this link: > Warning! This method of making the World of Tanks game client compatible with Linux is completely player-made and has no connection to the Wargaming Company. We just recommend this modification as a quite popular and successful method. The World of Tanks development team is not responsible for these files and our Customer Service cannot offer support for them. > The experience is the same as with native games The fact that it works on your system doesn't mean it works on all systems. That's a problem with Wine, not your ebuilds, and in my opinion having them in GURU is not a good idea, in part for this reason. > Gentoo could be the best Linux distribution for games - because here we can > compile with -march=native and build minimal system. Sure, but these games belong in a separate overlay that can be used to keep Wine/Windows games. GURU should only have native software, not software that needs compatibility layers https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Portage/CustomTree#Creating_a_custom_ebuild_repository
<sarcasm> Why stopping at games, let's make a package for every freeware Windows program: media-gfx/paint-net, app-editors/notepad++ </sarcasm>
> Wine which pulls in a bunch of dependencies I use Conty - single dependency with everything inside https://github.com/gentoo/guru/blob/cd2458b8ef9dffa9fbad022d2264523ce04f3b70/games-strategy/armies-of-exigo-demo/armies-of-exigo-demo-1.0.ebuild#L24
> and sometimes requires debugging to make things work. I add games that just works for me - one command to install, second command to play. Old games that runs good on my machine.
> The fact that it works on your system doesn't mean it works on all systems We have compatibility database https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3238 - users report here if something works bad.
> The fact that it works on your system doesn't mean it works on all systems Like all software.
> Why stopping at games, let's make a package for every freeware Windows program: media-gfx/paint-net, app-editors/notepad++ Why not, if the user experience is good. Compatibility layer is like a driver, like DirectX for example - we have multiple layers on the system. Looks like you think that software under Wine works bad - but in many cases in works good. For example - I love this game - Armies of Exigo https://github.com/gentoo/guru/tree/master/games-strategy/armies-of-exigo-demo - 60 FPS, just works, who cares what "layers" inside? With ONE dependency, without polluting the system. I do not understand why you want to remove something that works good and useful for people. Maybe remove all Java software, because this is not native?
(In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #24) > Maybe remove all Java software, because this is not native? This is reductio ad absurdum. Bytecode and machine code are very different.
See "Why do some games run faster in Wine than the native ports?" https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/fyadc4/why_do_some_games_run_faster_in_wine_than_the/
and "Is there any reason why windows games would be running better on linux than on windows?", quoting it: > all 3 games were performing as well or better than on windows basically the entire time https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/15f52ua/is_there_any_reason_why_windows_games_would_be/
"Windows native games now run faster on Linux than windows, thanks to wine DXVK and steam proton!" https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianGaming/comments/16vyvjs/windows_native_games_now_run_faster_on_linux_than/
(In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #24) Compare what happened here to installing docker image tarballs via Portage - completely misses the point IMHO. > I add games that just works for me - one command to install, second command to play. Old games that runs good on my machine. As was suggested, with Lutris your experience could be a lot better, and you do not even need to run as root to install the game - that's a HUGE improvement if you asked me. Even better, if you write a Lutris installer script for a given game you cna share it cross-distro! > we have multiple layers on the system. But we should not! Great feature of Gentoo called SLOTting allows us to have multiple versions of software that normally users would have to install under their user dir or run a emulator / container / VM to use. (I'm not even gonna talk about other benefits of SLOTs such as not having the breakages other distros suffer because of Python version mismatches.) Portage is a complex piece of software but at the end it has worked in REDUCING the number of "layers" of a system. Summarizing: please direct your efforts to software that helps to run games - Litris, Wine versions, ScummVM, etc., etc.... rather than packaging ISOs from archive.org as ebuilds bound to only ONE tool.
Things like ::guru and even ::gentoo work on the basis of maintenance. If someone starts adding many new packages and spending little time on maintenance of existing packages, we tend to get worried. The impression I had is that you're packaging every demo of interest to you and putting it into ::guru. I would say that's not appropriate and you should pace yourself a bit with them. The community here is saying "please stop doing that" and you seem to be doubling down. The quality of the ebuilds is also mixed and could do with some work.
Personally, I would say put them in a separate repository, simply because they all are thematically the same. When you have a macroscopic amount of packages that all thematically belong together it just makes a lot of sense to put them in a dedicated repository. See for example the ::brother-overlay for Brother printer/scanner drivers, or my own ::natinst for semi-auto generated ebuilds for LabVIEW and co. That all being said, we don't have a rule against ebuilds that install prebuilt binaries that have to run through a compatibility layer. If we really want to push this, then we should formulate some new rule. I understand (and somewhat agree with) the concerns that have been raised, but as far as I can see no rule is broken. So for this reason I don't think we (@guru-devs) can/should undertaken any action here. At least not without formulating new policy. But please do consider moving this to a dedicated repository. Not because what was added is not allowed, but because what was added is large in scope and thematically uniform. As a side note, the discussion on wine and its considerable achievements over the last years is off-topic, please keep this thread on-topic.
> with Lutris your experience could be a lot better, and you do not even need to run as root to install the game - that's a HUGE improvement if you asked me. > Even better, if you write a Lutris installer script for a given game you cna share it cross-distro! Hmmmm..... good points....
Okaaaaay, okay.... I will not add Wine games to Guru... So many people against my lovely games. Yes, I love the points of Lutris - without root for every game, multi distro. I was not aware of Lutris.
> The quality of the ebuilds is also mixed and could do with some work. I am always open to feedback - I improve ebuilds when somebody points me to what exactly could be improved.
Many of the questionable ebuilds are useless in the sense that they do not belong to the system, they belong to a user. Why download an iso file to /opt, then output a text and leave it there? Usually people download an iso to their home directory, write it to an install media, then remove it. No need to clutter the system with them, especially since iso files are binaries, not built from source, as most of Gentoo packages are. Same for wine games: most people install the game in their home and play it from there. Steam does the same thing, everything is in $HOME. About the copyright, I don't think there is a problem with demos. Demos are released with the specific purpose of being redistributed, chances of them being retired are slim. They should still have RESTRING="mirror bindist". But for full games, even if abandonware, the situation changes. It's probably better to also have RESTRICT="fetch", especially since you are the one uploading them to archive.org One final point - it is debatable if they break the regulations. "The purpose of GURU project is to maintain a repository that can be reasonably used by Gentoo users." By "reasonably used" I understand they have some use, I find an ebuild that simply downloads an iso and prints a text less that reasonable. Reasonable software brings some more value. tl; dr - my conclusion is you should try to create your own overlay (check https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Overlays/Overlays_guide ) and move games and other isos there. People that look for a particular game can find it using http://gpo.zugaina.org/
> Why download an iso file to /opt, then output a text and leave it there? For the case when X cannot run, and we need some bootable ISO to fix the system.
> most people install the game in their home and play it from there. But how Portage can install to user directory? And when we have multiple users.
(In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #36) > For the case when X cannot run, and we need some bootable ISO to fix the > system. A Gentoo ISO is more appropriate, and you won't find ebuilds for Gentoo ISOs that just download it to /opt (In reply to Vitaly Zdanevich from comment #37) > But how Portage can install to user directory? And when we have multiple > users. That's why it doesn't belong in an ebuild.
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?h=dev&id=2b3560eb47f1a78a2c3480129ce104925796391e I'm adding app-shells/wttr-in, a wrapper for `curl wttr.in`, to the list of questionable ebuilds. Handy aliases belong to your shell's configuration files, not in a public repository of system packages. There are no files to be managed and there is no meaningful definition of versions for this "package". Package managers are simply the wrong tool for the problem, that you are trying to solve. Speaking of, what are you trying to achieve with this ebuild? If you want to spread the word about wttr.in, better write a blog post, tweet about it or share your personal list of browser bookmarks or bash aliases on social media.
(In reply to Lucio Sauer from comment #39) > Speaking of, what are you trying to achieve with this ebuild? I love this web weather service. And this is a good demo of what is possible to render in a terminal. So, now in `emerge -s weather` we have this useful "app", why not?? This is good for people. I found that sometimes I forget the domain name, so I wrote this. Also, maybe in the future I will extend it with additional options, with extracting to a separate repository - or contributing to the upstream. > If you want to spread the word about wttr.in, better write a blog post, I am not a popular blogger for now.
Vitaly, this is a very low effort and very low quality ebuild, it really doesn't belong here, it continues the same trend. You basically created a one line script with echo. No shebang, no parameter quoting, no url encoding (what happens if I search for New York or Roșiorii de Vede?), not even an exec to replace the current running process. And to do a quick review, the category is wrong, this is neither a shell, nor a shell extension. The HOMEPAGE is wrong, it is supposed to be the homepage of the package you are installing, not an URL that provides a service. S should come after HOMEPAGE. LICENSE should have an empty line before, not after. It is customary to use version 9999 for live ebuilds, but this is not a live ebuild: it does not have PROPERTIES="live" and it has KEYWORDS. And we no longer use "Gentoo Foundation" as the copyright holder, but "Gentoo Authors". BTW, whose license is that? The ebuild is GPL-2, wttr.in is Apache-2.0, there is no copyright notice in the installed script, no accompanying LICENSE file, how do you know the license is GPL-3 in this case? Please take GURU more seriously, it is not a playground.
> Vitaly, this is a very low effort and very low quality ebuild Because not many lines? But it works.
> what happens if I search for New York or Roșiorii de Vede? Ops, I can improve it.
> S should come after HOMEPAGE. LICENSE should have an empty line before, not after I can fix it.
> The ebuild is GPL-2, wttr.in is Apache-2.0 Sorry I will fix that.
I fear you're focusing on arguing individual points instead of understanding why we're collectively concerned about the quantity of ebuilds you're adding for things which don't even seem appropriate for packaging, at least not in a general repository (your own is fine).
The bug has been referenced in the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=8e8b92d28c405c14117d552ba12c590e3a39f32a commit 8e8b92d28c405c14117d552ba12c590e3a39f32a Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:07:34 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:07:34 +0000 games-strategy/warhammer4000-dawn-of-war-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> .../warhammer4000-dawn-of-war-demo/Manifest | 1 - .../warhammer4000-dawn-of-war-demo/metadata.xml | 8 ---- .../warhammer4000-dawn-of-war-demo-1.ebuild | 46 ---------------------- 3 files changed, 55 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=45bd03aedade6e63cb92a38b54528f24b9737fc7 commit 45bd03aedade6e63cb92a38b54528f24b9737fc7 Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:07:10 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:07:10 +0000 games-rpg/heroes-of-might-and-magic-v-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> .../heroes-of-might-and-magic-v-demo/Manifest | 1 - .../heroes-of-might-and-magic-v-demo-1.ebuild | 51 ---------------------- .../heroes-of-might-and-magic-v-demo/metadata.xml | 8 ---- 3 files changed, 60 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=8c3000a48cd5442d16642085910110cfae7ecf61 commit 8c3000a48cd5442d16642085910110cfae7ecf61 Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:05:59 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:05:59 +0000 app-misc/watch-tree-and-replace-spaces-with-a-few-other-chars: treeclean Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> .../Manifest | 2 -- .../metadata.xml | 12 ------------ ...eplace-spaces-with-a-few-other-chars-1.0.0.ebuild | 20 -------------------- ...eplace-spaces-with-a-few-other-chars-1.0.1.ebuild | 20 -------------------- 4 files changed, 54 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=dff12a1a1d28a71de9b68ee0743aff7af4d53565 commit dff12a1a1d28a71de9b68ee0743aff7af4d53565 Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:04:27 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:04:27 +0000 games-strategy/armies-of-exigo-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> games-strategy/armies-of-exigo-demo/Manifest | 2 - .../armies-of-exigo-demo-1.0.ebuild | 65 ---------------------- games-strategy/armies-of-exigo-demo/metadata.xml | 8 --- 3 files changed, 75 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=370cc01f0f904492519a598d6cf3ca3719cb0abb commit 370cc01f0f904492519a598d6cf3ca3719cb0abb Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:04:05 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:04:05 +0000 games-strategy/massive-assault-network-2-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> .../massive-assault-network-2-demo/Manifest | 1 - .../massive-assault-network-2-demo-2.0.270.ebuild | 55 ---------------------- .../massive-assault-network-2-demo/metadata.xml | 8 ---- 3 files changed, 64 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=30a30dbb7f87036e3ca3c86753c18644cf5348fc commit 30a30dbb7f87036e3ca3c86753c18644cf5348fc Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:03:27 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:03:31 +0000 games-rpg/kings-bounty-the-legend-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> games-rpg/kings-bounty-the-legend-demo/Manifest | 1 - .../kings-bounty-the-legend-demo-1.ebuild | 63 ---------------------- .../kings-bounty-the-legend-demo/metadata.xml | 8 --- 3 files changed, 72 deletions(-) https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/proj/guru.git/commit/?id=b8ecf0089b3a55ae94211bc8a3975a950343e0b8 commit b8ecf0089b3a55ae94211bc8a3975a950343e0b8 Author: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2024-04-17 15:02:09 +0000 Commit: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2024-04-17 15:02:16 +0000 games-fps/far-cry-demo: treeclean Not appropriate package for guru, should be in another overlay. Read bug for more info. Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/927922 Signed-off-by: Arthur Zamarin <arthurzam@gentoo.org> games-fps/far-cry-demo/Manifest | 1 - games-fps/far-cry-demo/far-cry-demo-9999.ebuild | 52 ------------------------- games-fps/far-cry-demo/metadata.xml | 8 ---- 3 files changed, 61 deletions(-)
