RFC

[Jochem Huhmann]

* Jeffrey Watts <watts at jayhawks.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Robert W. Current Jr. Ph.D. wrote:
> 
> > I totally and firmly disagree.  The LSB is a committee of
> > representitives from all major distributions who have choosen to sit
> > down at a table and form some standards.  That was the goal.  To now
> > stand up from the table and say "Red Hat sells the most disks, so
> > RPM's are standard, we can all go home and just follow Red Hat" is
> > just total CRAP.  Forgive me, but it's CRAP!
> 
> I don't know if you've used other distributions out there, but the RPM
> format _is_ the standard.  The only exceptions I can think of off-hand are
> the Debian dpkg format, Stampede's SLP format, and Slackware's use of
> tarballs.  SuSE (which has the largest userbase in Europe), Red Hat (which
> has the largest userbase in the US), TurboLinux (which has the largest
> userbase in the Far East), Caldera, and Mandrake all use RPM.

Debian is at least here in Europe quite common (although I personally do
know Redhat better, I've only recently started to use Debian more
often) and it is not enough just to have a "standard", it also has to
make sense. RPM imposes this /usr-bloat, since packages seldom make
differences between "system as delivered" and absolutely unimportant
stuff. Distributors *do* have two contrary things in mind: Embrace as
most software as possible and safe costs and manpower. Not understood
this is poison. *All* distributions are crap, really. And with the
possible exception of Debian most people involved in this business even
don't *admit* how difficult their job actually is. I've understood
Robert this way and IMHO he is right.

> It's a no-brainer, especially when combined with the fact that Debian,
> Slackware, and Stampede can use RPMs via the use of the nifty 'alien'
> tool.

;-)

[Personal things deleted]

> All of this circular discussion about your opinions is wasted time, and I
> will no longer discuss it.  Please produce specifications and documents,
> and leave your opinions at home.  Rewriting the mission statement isn't
> enough.  If you say that ten megabytes is the most that the specification
> should use, give us a list of the applications and libraries that should
> be there.  Again, please produce real work, don't just criticize.

This is a discussion list and opinions are welcomed on most discussion
lists.


        Jochem

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