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Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world



On Tuesday 18 May 2004 07:00, Paul Johnson wrote:

>> 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.
> 



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