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Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world



bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx) writes:

> Dominique Dumont wrote:
>> bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx) writes:
>> >>     #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm
>> >
>> > As other people have written doing this is not a good thing.  Put
>> > yourself in the other position.  I have a .deb file from Debian.  I
>> > want to install it on a RH system.  Should I insist that you must use
>> > dpkg to install it there?  That would be just as silly as insisting
>> > the reverse.  A native packaging is always best.
>> 
>> Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system,
>> this would be a good message sent to the corporate world.
>
> Ian Murdock <imurdock@progeny.com> wrote the following a while back.
> I am very interested in how it turns out.
>
>   http://lists.progeny.com/archive/discover-workers/200310/msg00000.html
>
>   Summary snippet:
>
>     We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support
>     into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based
>     distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and
>     possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by
>     side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions
>     (e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT.

Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome
it's own shortcomings to stop sucking.  Such as, 1) distro-dependent
RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is.  2) Naming conventions.  RPM
isn't standardized.  3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in
RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2.  4) QA in RPM based
distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and
3 and making headlines as it does.

The clean fix would be to go back in time, kill the people who thought
RPM was a good idea and make sure the Debian folks do what they did
anyway, but we can't have everything.  8:o)

>> Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the
>> corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software
>> from ISV (like Oracle).
>
> I understand what you are saying.  But they can install oracle and
> others today.  My comment is that they want a vendor supported
> installation of the vendor application.  Not an installation that a
> Debian expert made happen.

It's 2004.  Linux is the second most common OS and Debian is the
distro with the largest Linux market share from what I've been hearing
lately.  There is *ZERO* excuse for companies supporting Linux not to
have .debs if they're distributing in binary form, they need to
Debianize or hit the grave.

> If you alien the RH package and try to install it on Debian it will
> install fine.  Programs will work.  But then eventually you will
> install a Debian package which requires not ncurses4 but libncurses4.

Number 2 and Number 4 from above apply.

> Personally, yes.  I think many people have that ideal.  It is written
> into the Social Contract.  But the recent Debian Social Contract vote
> casts that as a majority opinion into doubt.  So now I don't know.  A
> contingent of vocal DDs would certainly say no.

My understanding is this is a vocal minority decreasing in size as
more good, free software comes out.  Proprietary software is sort of a
band-aid for a real solution, or a toy for after work.

-- 
Paul Johnson
<baloo@ursine.ca>
Linux.  You can find a worse OS, but it costs more.

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