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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