Re: RFC: Better portability for package maintainers
On Sun, 2006-05-21 at 19:14 +0300, George Danchev wrote:
> On Sunday 21 May 2006 17:34, Erast Benson wrote:
> --cut--
> > > > But I hope you still got me right. For me, all these "things" are
> > > > existing applications which must run. The world is not 100% open
> > > > sourced yet and we are in it, we are part of it, therefore my ideal OS
> > > > need to be capable to run existing freeware and closed binaries as is
> > > > without re-compilation. I want to run VMware, Oracle, Skype, SAP,
> > > > Macromedia flush, etc, etc, etc. I want my Nexenta to run DTrace,
> > > > BrandZ
> > > > virtualization, ZFS, Zones without major re-design, etc, etc, etc...
> > > >
> > > > Once you accompany OpenSolaris kernel with GLIBC, you will kill this
> > > > capability, you will not be able to run anything other than OSS
> > > > compiled for your particular distro. That was my point. And isn't LSB
> > > > is what GNU/Linux moving towards to? In OpenSolaris we have its Core
> > > > which we following as a standard and I don't see any single reason not
> > > > to do so.
> > >
> > > You have your points right, but you should realize that Debian GNU /
> > > <Kernel>, is glibc based. This means that your Base System without the
> > > kernel should come from GNU sources. Having that said, you should invest
> > > some efforts to port glibc to the Solaris (or OpenSolaris, Nevada,
> > > whatever[1]) kernel (to support all these fancy features mentioned
> > > above), as this has been done for glibc and the FreeBSD kernel by Bruno
> > > Haible.
> >
> > I'm personally will not do that. As I said earlier, I did it a year ago,
> > I even managed to run statically linked binaries on GLIBC + OpenSolaris
> > kernel. Than I realized that the resulted Operating Environment will not
> > be compatible with *anything* existing... how much it will be better
> > than GNU/Linux or GNU/OpenSolaris or SUN/OpenSolaris? I realized that
>
> This is how (around glibc) the Debian's Linux and non-Linux ports are being
> constructed. And yes, they are innovative. Glibc is not tighten to any
> existing kernel or arch. I know that it all depends on what Base System you
> are targeting and want to be a part of. Seems you prefer being a distribution
> of OpenSolaris (kernel+libc) to allow existing Solaris proprietary binaries
> to run unmodified and use the packaging system tools from the Debian Project.
> Still I can not find anything innovatiove here, except that the broken
> Solaris pkg system is replaced by a more comprehensive and robust one. Being
> also a (not very impressed) Solaris (7/8/9) user this seems as an progress
> and I appreciate that, but it is not enough for users like me ;-)
So, why GLIBC is so important to you? What do you miss in SUN C library?
And why do you think technically impossible to extend SUN C library with
missing GLIBC functionality? I'm just trying to understand your point of
view..
> > porting effort might be greatly minimized by utilizing different
> > approaches:
> >
> > 1) provide 100% Debian environment, so native Debian scripts will run as
> > is;
> > 2) extend SUN C library with missing GLIBC functionality;
> > 3) use of side libraries like libiconv, gettext, libintl;
> > 4) use of transitional packages.
>
> Good. You are working for extending OpenSolaris kernel+libc, but why do you
> believe it is technically possible and feasible to become an official Debian
> port with such a system ? Being an independent OpenSolaris distribution using
> packaging system from Debian should be enough for your effort I believe.
because non-glibc Debian architectures does exists (i.e.
FreeBSD,Solaris,Darwin), and it is time to consider them and accept
their existence. Those core architectures are open sourced and their
communities will only grow over time. It is not like they will
disappear, that means Debian must adjust to the new fact of life: "we
have more than one major OS totally open-sourced at its core".
--
Erast
Reply to: