Re: [DEBIAN] Standardization?
On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Syrus Nemat-Nasser wrote:
> A few points:
>
> 1. Debian has been growing in it's base, not shrinking.
Growing in number of systems installed or as a PERCENTAGE of total linux
systems? The first number does not count as much as the second number.
> 3. Debian has a package called alien which will allow the installation of
> .rpm packages on a Debian system.
SOME rpm packages. Some can be quite a bear to get installed.
Particularly anything from caldera that uses the opt directory.
> 5. There is no need for Debian to be the most popular distribution to
> guarantee its survival.
Agreed, but it needs to be easy for someone to produce a WordPerfect
package for. (as an example).
>
> 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.
Very few DEBIAN developers. When I posted my request on this list for a
web page that discusses the differences/merits between the two, I got a
half-dozen private emails aking me to share any info that I got with them.
Also, I got email asking for the SAME information from folks on the
Caldera list when I mentioned dpkg/rpm.
There ARE commercial developers that MIGHT be interested in this
information. I suspect that some may not even be aware that dpkg exists
or take it seriously. Currently there are what, 4? linux distributions
using .rpm?
>
> 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. :-)
Debian's user base will likely never dry up. Slackware probably sold more
individual CDROMS of its software than last year but I would say that the
overall percentage of systems running slackware is decreasing. If you
were going to release an application, are you going to release a version
for a distribution with a decreasing market share (yet an increasing user
base)?
George Bonser
Tommy Lasorda for baseball commissioner!
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