Re: Linux Core Consortium
Op do, 16-12-2004 te 14:46 -0500, schreef Ian Murdock:
> We've heard
> directly from the biggest ISVs that nothing short of a common
> binary core will be viable from their point of view.
Well, frankly, I don't care what they think is 'viable'.
'ISV' is just another name for 'Software Hoarder'. I thought Debian was
about Freedom, not about "how can we make the life of proprietary
software developers easy?"
As a distribution consisting only of Free Software, Debian has very good
reasons to not distribute third-party binaries. That's what the LCC
binaries will be: third-party. We should not compromise all that we have
and all that we stand for, for the benefit of some Enterprise Managers
and people advocating non-free software.
If the LSB doesn't work, the non-free hoarders are free to suggest
improvements where applicable; if it is impossible to create a single
binary that will run on all LSB-certified distributions, then that is a
bug in either the LSB process (by failing to provide a well enough
defined standard), the non-free software (by relying too much on a
single implementation of the standard), or the toolchain (by not being
able to correctly manage the ABI of built libraries). That bug may be
worked around by providing a common binary core; it will, however, not
actually be fixed by doing so.
One of the major benefits of Free Software is the ability to fix bugs
without having to rely on external factors. If, however, rebuilding your
C library will result in the loss of your support contract, you will
essentially have lost that benefit, and many more with it.
I refuse to accept that 'providing a common binary core' would be the
only way to fix the issue. It is probably the easiest way, and for lazy
people it may look as if it is the only one; but we should not dismiss
the idea that it is possible to fix the Free software or the standard so
that the LSB /will/ work.
--
EARTH
smog | bricks
AIR -- mud -- FIRE
soda water | tequila
WATER
-- with thanks to fortune
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