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Re: [DEBIAN] Standardization?



On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, George Bonser wrote:

[snip]
> But if it means that they risk "loving it to death" (literally), some
> things might have to be compromised at some point.  Example, if dpkg is so
> much better than rpm, why not contribute to rpm to incorporate the needed
> features?  Because some are going to resent the name rpm and the loss of
> .deb?  What difference does it make in the practical sense as long as it
> gets the job done? As long as the technical superiority is still there,
> what difference does it make what it is called?  On the other hand, are
> there any subtle changes that can be made to dpkg to make the format of
> .deb files a little closer to .rpm without sacrificing any technical
> superiority?  These are the kinds of questions that might start to prove
> crucial as Linux matures.  Face it, there are probably more than twice as
> many RedHat + Caldera systems out there than Debian.  I suspect that
> finding commercial applications in .deb format will always be a problem.

A few points:

1. Debian has been growing in it's base, not shrinking.

2. Commercial apps can be installed in /usr/local.  This is standard
practice, e.g. Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Star Office.  These have their
own non-rpm install programs, and they work on Debian, Red Hat, Slackware,
etc.

3. Debian has a package called alien which will allow the installation of
.rpm packages on a Debian system.

4. A wrapper .deb package may be created by a Debian developer to install
commercial software, e.g. the Netscape package.

5. There is no need for Debian to be the most popular distribution to
guarantee its survival.

6. Someone already wrote an extension to .rpm format (.pkg ??) which
incorporates the package dependency requirements of a system like Debian.
I have no idea if Red Hat would go for such a change.  Very few Debian
developers are interested in switching to .rpm as it stands.  Our dpkg is
better.

7. Write me again when Debian's user base is drying up.  As of about one
month ago, I can no longer read through all the mail on this list.  It
takes too much time--too many active users. :-)

Syrus.

-- 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Syrus Nemat-Nasser <syrus@ucsd.edu>    UCSD Physics Dept.



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