Re: why no linuxconf package?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Russell Nelson wrote:
> Linuxconf uses the GPL. Is there some non-technical reason why there
> is no Debian package for Linuxconf? (I just have this idea that
> Debian suffers from NIH -- dare I say "RPM"?)
>
Apparently linuxconf is included with potato (debian 2.2, which is in
development). IMHO this is really not a good thing, because linuxconf has
a nasty tendancy to create scripts that are easily machine parsable but
are absolutely unreadable to humans. One of Debians greatest assets is
its remote, console based admin capability. To me, linuxconf really
breaks this.
I don't think it's fair at all to say that Debian suffers from the NIH
syndrome. Did we write sendmail, apache, emacs, or perl? RedHat didn't
write linuxconf (in fact, linuxconf is incompatible with redhat's own
"AnotherLevel" config tool (I think that's the right name)). So it's not
like we've got a problem with stuff written by people doing work for other
distributions. And there are fundamental reasons why we use something
other than RPM. The Debian package format is inherently better. This has
been debated by the developers quite often. Somebody else can probably
give you a more detailed history of this issue. But it's definitely safe
to say that the fact that we're not using RPM has nothing to do with the
fact that Redhat wrote it.
noah
PGP public key available at
http://lynx.dac.neu.edu/home/httpd/n/nmeyerha/mail.html
or by 'finger -l frodo@ccs.neu.edu'
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
iQCVAwUBN7Q6eodCcpBjGWoFAQEMyQP7BrsuU01u/TVkWr7s3cWYFa559HmSpk+E
aG0Zu5H42Hd0Qj8QVUJbBmEw7afA1i3ANsIrmNMICMsaX5PtCdLUGRI66SxHmK4z
KkV1MmnEnVOLF/f4R1MKFCIZSP9nP6Nz+S8NaU1Kf8UVL8lASBBeGLvlsVAOJHoZ
EdP+NPy/dZE=
=ZBLV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Reply to: