Re: status of Progeny projects
Hi Joey,
Couple things:
We don't intend this to compete with d-i at all, and we certainly don't
think this work should have any bearing whatsoever on the release of
sarge (I'd LOVE to see sarge released in December and show all the wags
that think Debian can't release anything on a predictable timetable).
We did this because Progeny has different, albeit complementary,
goals than Debian: Debian supports 11 architectures, whereas Progeny
only supports 2, and will probably never support more than 3-4, since
most of the architectures Debian supports are no longer commercially
interesting. However, Progeny supports 2 distributions (Debian and Red
Hat), whereas Debian only supports 1. Our Red Hat customers expect
the native Anaconda install experience, and it turns
out our Debian customers want that easy-to-install experience too.
So, one of the goals here from Progeny's point of view is to simplify
the support function; now, rather than having to support 2 installers,
one for Debian and one for Red Hat, we only have to support 1. We're
doing the same sort of "cross-pollination" in software distribution,
this time in the other direction, by actively working to help merge the
various patches that add RPM support to APT into the mainline APT.
Again, now we only have to support one mechanism for both distributions
rather than 2.
Since our goals are complementary, we figured we would put our work out
there for the Debian community to ignore or not ignore as it sees fit.
Of course, simplifying the support function at Progeny isn't the most
interesting goal here. As I hinted at in the original email, another,
explicit, goal is to help facilitate the "bringing together" of the
various distributions and their needlessly incompatible technologies,
something that simplifies our lives as well as the lives of many, many
others. I'll have a lot more to say about this in the coming weeks..
-Ian
--
Ian Murdock
317-578-8882 (office)
http://www.progeny.com/
http://ianmurdock.com/
On Sun, 2003-10-26 at 03:54, Martin Schulze wrote:
> Ian Murdock wrote:
> > We have ported Red Hat's Anaconda installer to Debian; essentially,
> > we replaced calls to RPM with calls to APT, and replaced
> > Red Hat-specific configuration hooks with calls into the configlets and
> > debconf. We have also written a tool called PickAx that
> > facilitates the creation of Anaconda-based Debian installation CD sets.
>
> I wonder why Progeny "invented" yet another installer for Debian
> instead of helping Debian push the debian-installer forward which is
> the accepted installer for sarge.
>
> A "new" different installer can only mean two things:
>
> 1. ignored by the Debian community since d-i is the way to go.
>
> or
>
> 2. not ignored and discussions whether to use this and new porting
> work to get it work on the other Debian-supported architectures
> will probably delay the release of sarge; or split work between
> d-i and Anaconda which will also delay the release of sarge since
> d-i work is slowed down
>
> Apart from "this does not help Debian at all" I wonder if the above
> were anticipaged by Progeny.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joey
>
> PS: Maybe I'm misinterpreting this as well, so please get me on the
> right track.
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