Re: RPM

[Paul Wade <paulwade@greenbush.com>]

On Sun, 30 Mar 1997, Jim Pick wrote:

> 
>  > >From Redhat's blurb about their new Maximum RPM book.
> > >             RPM currently runs on Linux, IRIX, Solaris, SunOS, AIX,
> > >             HP/UX, AmigaOS, and FreeBSD, and is quickly becoming the
> > >             de-facto packaging standard for free software on the
> > >             Internet.
> > 
> > Oh really? De-facto standard? This type of bloated marketing claim reminds
> > of another very popular commerial software company that makes operating
> > systems for PC's. And the fact that Redhat often reminds me of them is one
> > of the reasons I choose not to use Redhat 
> 
> Randolph Chung has released a alpha-test version of a utility that
> will convert .deb files to .rpm files.
> 
> http://132.236.56.9/pages/rc42/program/martian.html
> 
> And Debian's alien package can already install .rpm files.
> 
> What I'd personally like to see is some more interoperability between the
> packaging systems.  Maybe we could make a collection of RPM's that
> worked on Debian (the files could end in .rpm.deb), and a collection of
> ..deb's that worked on Red Hat (the files could end in .deb.rpm).
> 
> For some packages (which don't have complex requirements), this should
> not be a tough thing to do.  Of course, differences in system policy,
> filesystem structure, etc. will make it difficult to do this for any
> complex packages.  But the packaging systems would probably evolve a bit
> over time to make this sort of thing more possible.
> 
> The benefits to doing this are obvious:  instead of having two maintainers
> developing packages for two different packaging systems - we could cut that
> down to one maintainer doing work for two different systems.  In the end,
> that means less load on the maintainers, and higher quality software.
> 
> Plus, I think it would be a boost to the Debian project -- since we're 
> much better equipped to handle volunteer package maintainers.  My impression
> of the people who develop "contrib" packages for Red Hat is that they
> are treated as "second class citizens" by that particular project (maybe
> that sounds too nasty).  The RPM's developed by Red Hat Software themselves
> obviously get precedence over those developed outside the company.  These
> "contrib" developers might like working with us better, even if their
> primary target is the Red Hat system.
> 
> And nobody wants you to shell out $34.95 to contribute to our project.  :-)
> 
> (a book would be nice to have though)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>  - Jim

Last September, I went through the process of putting dpkg and dselect on
a system that was initially Red Hat with lots of stuff compiled and
installed afterwards. It was no easy chore.

It would be nice if the area of conversion to dpkg would be addressed
more. Dpkg is totally free to use, sell, modify, etc. and I'm not sure
that is the case with the others.

Paul Wade - Greenbush Technologies Corporation
http://www.greenbush.com/cds.html
Linux CD's sent worldwide