[Nut-upsuser] UPS configuration issue?

[gene heskett]

On 5/13/25 12:58, Jim Klimov wrote:
> Hello Gene,
>
>    I read and nodded sometimes and caught myself thinking that I used to
> propose or agree with some of the points you make, but outgrew those.
>
>> ...makers claim...
> I suppose this means asciidoc makers (not e.g. UPS makers)? They are
> actually largely non-Windows, especially in the part about rendering books,
> presentations, local HTML pages or web sites. These are all
> platform-independent formats.
I should have clarified: Not the asciidocs people, theey can only work 
with what the makers supply, but the makers themselves. There seems to 
be a fairly wide air gap between what is claimed on the box, and what 
actually falls out of my mail box or is delivered on my front deck.
>> Holding someone's feet to fire for something
> Who are we to do so? Who are "nut folks"? A loose community joined by an
> interest, with some persons more prominent in a given year. To require
> something of UPS makers, the wider community members actually have more
> legal leverage, as paying customers of this or that company delivering what
> they can claim a defective product, infringed right-to-repair
> (spec/protocol docs), etc.

Here we argue, in good faith, you and the other experts in this group, 
as the only platform wide supplier of software basically designed to try 
to work with ALL of the UPS's that do have a control interface, would 
seem to represent the users to the makers with enough clout to have a 
measurable effect on sales when a bad product/maker becomes known, and 
that then becomes the muscle capable of holding recalcitrant feet to the 
fire.  You personally may not like to be seen in that light, and 
reluctant to make use of that seat at the top of the mast, but its still 
a fact.

As the now long retired CE of a mid market tv station, I have helped 
that scenario play out.  Several times. I don't "carry a grudge" once 
the problem has been solved, but I've been pretty brutal in print at 
times.  And I have admitted and apologized when I was wrong, when I was.

> Core team and project as an entity has exposure that can be useful for
> vendors' marketing, and occasionally some things happened due to that. But
> (sadly), there's no incantation like "Bow thyself to celebrity BDFL, you
> evil corporation!" and so they would.
>
> As for civil discourse, anyone can post bugs and raise discussions;
> maintainers are not special in that regard. (And as said, paying customers
> can have a slightly upper hand when asking).
>
>> Those generated files are not tracked in Git.
>> But should be.
> Actually, no. At least not those with non-deterministic rendering results.
>
> There are quite a few files rendered and tracked by scripts in NUT recipes,
> and the massively multiplatform CI does make sure there are no git diffs as
> result of a build.

That situation has improved, and I appreciate its been a slow slog, 
thank you.

However debians legendary slowness to update things does test my 
patience at times. The fact that bookworms default nut is 2.8.0 is an 
example.

>
> Rendered docs have timestamps, renderer versions and whatnot embedded, and
> are hell to git-track.
>
>> packaged version in distros
> Their choice. And users'. If they go for stability and a well known
> landscape that changes slowly (backporting bug fixes to same baseline), or
> go with daily rolling builds - to each their own, there are pros and cons
> to both.
>
>> doc and code versions
> NUT docs are part of its code base so should closely match. Packages from a
> code snapshot deliver renders of its docs and should match.
>
> NUT website since 2.8.0 is rolling with current master, and historic
> snapshots are issued as part of release rituals to ~never change. So users
> of packages can go to a site with docs of their version.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Jim
>
> PS My condolences.
>
> On Tue, May 13, 2025, 17:45 gene heskett via Nut-upsuser <
> nut-upsuser at alioth-lists.debian.net> wrote:
>
>> On 5/12/25 09:46, Jim Klimov via Nut-upsuser wrote:
>> Comments from a CET's point of view.
>>> Hi Sam,
>>>
>>>     Not really sure what you mean here. NUT documentation is written in
>>> asciidoc, so that it is easy to combine from several source files and
>>> render into man pages, HTML, PDF, etc. (which does go via docbook XML as
>> a
>>> technical detail of asciidoc, and does result in some *roff files as a
>>> technical detail of man page rendering, but in NUT sources/recipes we do
>>> not directly care about either of those aspects). Allegedly there are a
>> few
>>> quirks with Asciidoc as well (notably there are several renderers out
>>> there, but any semblance of a formal standard and common testing suite
>> was
>>> being discussed as brewing up on FOSDEM 2025), but it is pretty
>> convenient
>>> and light-weight once you get a hold of it.
>> But woefully incomplete, primarily because the makers claim one thing in
>> their docs, but actually deliver something else. I don't consider that
>> as a nut fault.  However, since nut is the only one providing an
>> industry wide solution in the face of makers who have NDI what the
>> non-windblows world needs, I do fault the nut folks for not holding the
>> makers feet a little closer to the fire, stopping the lies and outright
>> BS this division of our industry is rife with.
>>>     NUT "dist" tarballs, including release snapshots, do include a copy of
>>> generated man pages (probably in a *roff format) for the benefit of
>>> end-users who only have a compiler and do not want to burden their
>> systems
>>> and build times with asciidoc/docbook/etc. tooling. So they can just
>> build
>>> NUT programs, `make install`, and have them nicely documented out of the
>>> box. Those generated files are not tracked in Git.
>> But should be.
>>>     Full-scale builds such as for packaging are encouraged to have the
>> full
>>> stack in the build agent (or build root) and re-generate these documents.
>>> This might, depending on local settings, add distro watermarks ("NUT
>> pages
>>> as part of OS XXX docs"), apply distro-wide build timestamp, use the
>> *roff
>>> version that OS is comfortable with, or whatever.
>>>
>>>     Also note that since NUT v2.8.3 we added support for `configure`
>> options
>>> to assign man section codes (numbers or not) for systems that do not
>> follow
>>> suit of Linux and BSD numbering (e.g. in Solaris/illumos, the system
>>> commands are historically not "8" but "1m"). Previously this required
>>> strange patch files on packager side, a burden to be revised/updated for
>>> each NUT release; now it requires just a few configure options that can
>> be
>>> left in the recipe once and forever.
>> Another point, you are about o make a 2.8.3, but the latest debian is
>> 2.8.0.  More feet to hold up to the fire. We can't use either to their
>> full capability because the docs don't match  what we read here. The
>> docs don't even seem to apply to the version they purport to be, if they
>> exist at all.  Hence I'm pleading for docs that match what the repo
>> installs.
>>
>> I have an APC 1500wa, now several years old.  Its front panel display
>> has been asking for a new set of batteries for at least 5 years, but due
>> to my now passed wife having COPD, a 20kw kohler in the back yard has an
>> under 10 second startup time.  So this machine runs normally for that
>> time period. And nut is not running, fails to start since bookworm.  And
>> I have NDI why. The APC OTOH is doing what I bought it for.
>>
>>> Hope this clarifies a few points?
It does indeed, thank you.  one final suggestion. incorporate into your 
sig, a download address, making an update a 1 click process to pull a 
fresh tarball.
>> Thanks for reading this far, Jim.
>>
>>> Jim Klimov
>> Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
>>
>> --
>> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>>    soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
>> -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
>> If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
>>    - Louis D. Brandeis
>>
>>
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>> Nut-upsuser at alioth-lists.debian.net
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Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis