Re: RFC: Better portability for package maintainers
On Sat, 2006-05-20 at 17:54 +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le samedi 20 mai 2006 à 08:07 -0700, Erast Benson a écrit :
> > > Please wake up. Debian is a GNU system and needs a GNU environment. I
> > > doubt that more than half of the archive can build without the GNU libc.
> > > This is the reason why the FreeBSD port started by porting the glibc.
> >
> > Let me just give you an freebsd example:
> >
> > """The FreeBSD Ports and Packages Collection offers a simple way for
> > users and administrators to install applications. There are currently
> > 14682 ports available."""
> >
> > 14000+ (source ports) is quite a number and far bigger than the half of
> > Debian APT repo.
>
> I'm talking about porting the Debian packages as they are.
>
> > Flink is a good Darwin example and actively growing too.
>
> If you compare the time Fink needed to attain 158 hundred packages and
> the time kFreeBSD needed to build 78% of the Debian archive, you will
> understand that without the GNU libc the amount of work is not even
> comparable.
Recent Nexenta progress proves that packages (meta information) could be
ported in much faster rates. It is all depends on different factors...
My personal opinion is that kernel and libc must not be split out.
Especially this is true for OpenSolaris world where kernel provides a
lot of extensions which are in heavy use by SUN C and others SUN core
libraries. Besides, we are aiming to provide 100% native OpenSolaris
compatibility which is very beneficial in the long run.
> > Nexenta is a good candidate of OpenSolaris ports. Besides it uses GNU
> > userland (instead of SUN userland), this simplifies porting efforts too.
>
> AFAIK Nexenta doesn't use the GNU libc, which is the basis of what is
> called a GNU userland.
It is part of it. But as long as glibc extensions available separately,
we are OK. GNU userland is far more than just glibc. Besides, SUN C
library perfectly implements all we need to run a majority of existing
ported apps.
--
Erast
Reply to: