Re: [TCLUG:9416] MediaOne Roadrunner and Linux (fwd)

[Christopher Reid Palmer <reid@pconline.com>]

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, John R. Sheets wrote:

> > Yeah, and you know what else they're subject to? Intense scrutiny of their
> > code and packages by millions of motivated geeks.
> 
> ....who can only offer their suggestions and hope Redhat decides to
> include the changes in the official distribution.

And this is different from any other free software project in what way...?


> > *ahem* contrib/
> 
> Right, but how important is contrib to Redhat, really?  How high of a
> profile does it get?

'It's there, grab it if you want.'

> With Redhat, it's more of a side avenue, than the primary avenue like
> with Debian.

So Debian doesn't review what goes into the distribution? For some reason
I doubt that.

> I guess my real question is, how does one get their software included
> into Redhat's contrib section?  Post and Pray?  Anonymous FTP?  (I don't
> know, I'm asking.)  (c:

FTP.


> > > IMHO, this is a noble request, but not a fair demand to make.  Both
> > > distributions have built their empires around their packaging systems.
> > > Massive resources have already been allocated to support each format.
> > > Whichever dist made the change would have to face a very large, irate
> > > crowd of their users, which would have an immediate and deadly impact on
> > > their respective user base.
> > 
> > Not so, because the presence of one packaging system does not preclude the
> > presence of the other.
> 
> But I wasn't talking about simultaneous existence, but rather the
> process of transition from one system to another.

The fact that they do not preclude each other makes transition very easy.
Include both kinds of packages, merge the code from the installer programs
so that you have one installer that understands both packaging systems,
and slowly migrate to having all or most of your packages in one format.
Forever include support for both, since it costs nothing. Where's the
beef?

> My point is in the previous paragraph.  Demanding a single packaging
> format is not only a burden on the distributor, but also on the entire
> development community who supports that packaging format.  You can't
> just ask Redhat or Debian to change.  You have to ask the community as a
> whole.

The community, for the most part, has chosen RPM. Red Hat and derivatives,
as well as other distros that use RPM (SuSE is very popular) constitute
the majority of Linux installations.


--
  Christopher Reid Palmer : http://www.innerfireworks.com/