Re: [users] Re: Time to fight for our beloved DEB format!

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Sean" == Sean 'Shaleh' Perry <shalehperry@home.com> writes:

    >> IMNSHO the LSB seriously erred on this, the .deb format makes
    >> far more sense as a baseline package format standard then rpm
    >> for the simple reason that the .deb format isn't really a
    >> format, its just an ar archive with gzipped tarballs!  those
    >> formats are nearly the oldest *real* standards as you can get
    >> with *nix.  .deb can be extracted on ANY OS, even an old
    >> decrepid proprietary UNIX host.  a baseline standard package
    >> format should be something that does not require special tools
    >> to deal with, tar.gz and .deb meet that criteria, rpm does not.
    >> you can for example extract a .deb on a stock slackware system,
    >> not true of rpm.  (unless slackware started including rpm in
    >> the base since i last looked..)
    >> 

    Sean> I agree with you 100% -- except you left out a few points
    Sean> which explain how they made the decision.

I don't really see a particularly strong reason to be attached to deb
as a package format.  I do see a reason to be attached to certain
features out of deb and to certain anti-features out of rpm, but I
thought the long-term LSB plan was to develop a package format.  I
think we should compile the list of features and anti-features we need
and try to influence LSB rather than influencing decisions that I
believe we already had input into.