[plug] Controversial comparison of distros?

[James Devenish]

In message <1067326517.3f9e1c3540b5e at webmailtest.iinet.net.au>
on Tue, Oct 28, 2003 at 03:35:17PM +0800, sscott at iinet.net.au wrote:
> Quoting Cameron Patrick <cameron at patrick.wattle.id.au>:
> > You're implying that there is a clear-cut distinction between core and
> > non-core ("3rd party") applications and that this distinction is in some
> > way meaningful in this debate.
> 
> yes, I am :)

Winner: sscott

> > Exactly.  And as such, they make different packaging decisions based on
> > the appropriateness for a particular target audience or purpose.  
> 
> My point is that the choice of packaging would not materially affect this and 

Winner: cameron

> > Ahem.  Stop it with the stereotypes, please.  Irrelevent ad hominem
> > attacks are not appreciated.
> 
> Point being (for the humour impaired), each distribution has a target audience. 
> Id say they were pretty clearly defined.

Winner: sscott

> > | If they all use RPM, would it really matter? If they all had a similar if
> > not 
> > | identical directory structure, would it really matter?
> > 
> > Possibly, although some alterations/improvements to RPM may be
> > necessary.
> 
> The rpm format is not set in stone. Fix it.

Winner: N/A

> > | RH could continue tuning their distro for Oracle, Mandrake could
> > | continue packaging unstable X apps which give everyone the shits,
> > | Debian could continue with their marvellous tradition of testing
> > | everything for 14 years and having ultra-perfect dependency trees, and
> > | slackware could continue to be ignored by anyone except those people
> > | who really should be running one of the BSDs.
> > [...]

Winner: sscott

> > | 3rd party software (including open and proprietary) would have an easier
> > time 
> > | packaging and distributing their software. General end users wouldnt have
> > to 
> > | worry about which distro they were running.
> > 
> > Surely the above two paragraph are contradictory?  If distros are
> > different in some way then end users /will/ have to worry what
> > distribution they're using, and people distributing software in binary
> > form /will/ have to care about the differences between distributions.
> 
> Not true.

Winner: cameron

> > One could argue that Debian requires deb packages instead of rpm
> > packages for the same reason that Red Hat requires rpm packages instead
> > of self-installing exe files.  Sure, the differences between Debian and
> > Red Hat may be lesser in magnitude than those between Red Hat and
> > Windows, but the principle of different operating systems generally
> > requiring different versions of software packages remains sound.
> 
> Youve lost me here, Im not too bright today. Can you elaborate?

Winner: cameron

> > Finding something that works (or is "good enough") is easy.  But if
> > there are other things that work /better/ for a certain purpose, should
> > we not be working to popularise them rather than marginalise them as
> > "unpopular", and/or denigrate their users as "comp sci students with too
> > much time"?  (Me, I'm a maths student with too much time! :-P)
> 
> My point is that there are better things to worry about (ie, your maths 
> degree!) than the fact that debs have pre-unpack triggers and rpm doesnt when 
> rpm seems to work just fine regardless.

Winner: unknown


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