Re: Re: LSB bastards
On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Ethan Benson wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 01, 2001 at 11:44:19PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> >
> > Does it matter? once a Debian system is able to install any lsb-compliant RPM package,
> > lesser developers will be disposed to create a dpkg package, which is only for Debian,
> > and dedicate efforts in RPM packaging. That, in a long term, brings Debian to become
> > another RPM-based distro.
> no it doesn't. as it stands now hardly any upstream developers
> provide .debs and many that do just ran alien on their .rpm and called
> it good enough. others make more of an effort but generally (IME)
> create shoddy packages because they just don't know what they are
> doing. not a slight to the upstream developer, i am a firm believer
> that upstream should not be involved in making packages at all, be
> they .rpm or .deb. packaging is the distro's job, not upstreams'.
> whenever you find software not packaged for debian, package it, or
> request another debian developer package it. if its Free it will
> probably be packaged (Resistence is Futile, you will be packaged...).
> if its non-free who cares! ;-)
> we don't need no stinken lsb to make packages for us, we can make them
> ourselves and do a better job anyway.
Except where the license on the software is such that we can't recompile from
source against our current distro, or we can't redistribute any .debs that we
build for the software. Which is the whole point of the LSB anyway.
The purpose of the LSB is to make the third-party vendor's job easier when
releasing software for Linux, by providing a standard that many/most Linux
distros will adhere to.
If the software is DFSG-compliant, the LSB is and always will be a non-issue.
Debian will assimilate that software in due time, do a better job of packaging
it, and get the integration right where other distros will continue to
flounder.
If the software is non-free, and you're of the opinion that this software
should be available for users of Debian, the LSB is a Good Thing, and its use
of RPM is also a Good Thing. Many more Linux users now use RPM-based systems
than use deb-based systems, which means that a standard that mandates RPM as a
package format is likely to be used in the real world; and if Debian wants to
be LSB-compliant so that our users can use this software, it's not really all
that hard to accomplish via alien. Should the mountain come to Mohammed, even
if it is Debian GNU/Mohammed?
If the software is non-free, and OTOH you're of the opinion that all
proprietary software is inherently evil and should never be allowed to touch
Linux even if it means not growing (or even shrinking) Linux's market share
and mind share, it might make sense to try to sabotage the LSB by insisting on
basing the entire thing on .deb, thus making it an untenable solution for
RPM-based distros who don't have the technical expertise that Debian has and
can't adapt their systems that quickly to accept .deb packages. Third-party
vendors won't use it, distribution makers won't use it, and the commercial
software scene on Linux will be right back where it was before, at least until
LSB 2.0 comes out. This is a very interesting argument against using RPM in
the LSB, but I didn't gather from the thread that anyone here was actually
suggesting that we do this.
Debian doesn't have to become an RPM-based distro to be LSB-compliant.
LSB support is a worthwhile goal; ripping out dpkg in favor of an inferior
package-management system is not.
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
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