Re: Re: live cd
On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 01:29:11AM +0200, Svante Signell wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 01:03, Svante Signell wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Excuse me for jumping in here. I'm one of the lurkers. I have been a
> > supporter of GNU for many years and have followed the GNU development
> > long before even Linux was born. I am still a fan of GNU idea an
> > appreciate very much the (L)GPL compared to other "free" licences. What
> > is sometimes very frustrating though is the stubbornness to add features
> > to a specific tool, e.g. Grub in this case. Another more famous example
> > is the CVS issue. If there had been some openness of the goals of CVS
> > tools like Bitkeeper would not even exist (Larry McVoy go disappear
> > somewhere).
> >
> > Other examples are Emacs vs Xemacs, gcc vs. egcs etc. I don't have a
> > proposal for a solution, maybe I'm just frustrated. On my to do list is
> > still to install Hurd on one of my computers to really get going with
> > the real GNU thing, not just Linux. BTW: Is it true that the L4 will be
> > distributed under a BSD licence, not (L)GPL?
There is a very simple counter argument: All of these you mentioned are free
software. You are not only allowed, but _encouraged_ to take them, rip them
apart, add features, and republish them with your enhancements. If you
succeed, you will certainly get attention. For example, egcs eventually was
merged back into the official gcc, which organization was redone. So this
is actually a pretty good example of how things can work out well.
There is a high barrier for new features in GNU projects. And although it
can be frustrating to experience that, you must understand why that is so.
For one, GNU tools strive for technical excellence, and high portability.
If you want to add something to coreutils, for example, it must not only be
excellent code, but also (as far as feasible), run on dozens of
architectures.
I don't know the reason why CD support for GRUB was officially discouraged.
Maybe there are technical reasons behind that, maybe just organizational.
But if you add CD support to GRUB, and there are no good technical arguments
against it, it can likely go into the Debian version of the package and be
used by Debian GNU/Hurd. You could fork grub if you want to do even more
work on it. Eventually, your work can be merged back into grub official, or
pupa, or you will become the real grub and the other will vanish.
However, if all you are saying is that other people are not working on the
features you would like to have, I have no answer for you. Then the only
thing you can try is to hire people, or try to convince them that it is
worthwhile to work on that feature.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/
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