Re: RFC

[Jeffrey Watts <watts@jayhawks.net>]

On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Robert W. Current Jr. Ph.D. wrote:

> I totally and firmly disagree.  The LSB is a committee of
> representitives from all major distributions who have choosen to sit
> down at a table and form some standards.  That was the goal.  To now
> stand up from the table and say "Red Hat sells the most disks, so
> RPM's are standard, we can all go home and just follow Red Hat" is
> just total CRAP.  Forgive me, but it's CRAP!

I don't know if you've used other distributions out there, but the RPM
format _is_ the standard.  The only exceptions I can think of off-hand are
the Debian dpkg format, Stampede's SLP format, and Slackware's use of
tarballs.  SuSE (which has the largest userbase in Europe), Red Hat (which
has the largest userbase in the US), TurboLinux (which has the largest
userbase in the Far East), Caldera, and Mandrake all use RPM.

It's a no-brainer, especially when combined with the fact that Debian,
Slackware, and Stampede can use RPMs via the use of the nifty 'alien'
tool.

Your conversation smacks of advocacy, and implies that Red Hat is
dictating the standards, which is unfair to say the least.  Either you
don't have experience with many Linux distributions (from your thread I
gather that you use BSD and maybe Debian), or you have a problem
communicating effectively in English (which is suggested by your frequent
misspellings and poor command of grammar).

If you do have difficulty in communicating your ideas in English, and your
use of ALL CAPS and flamebait words like "correct" and "right" are simply
artifacts of a language barrier, please let me know.  It will add another
grain of salt to the already large pile that I've had to take in order to
take what you are saying seriously and to not just dismiss it off-hand as
trolling.

It is good that you are stimulating conversation in lsb-discuss, but I
fear that most of your comments are simply noise.  I've been lurking here
for a while, and I am personally interested in Linux standards -- but I
hate to see this effort get confused by a discordant voice simply because
that voice doesn't understand the goals or role of the LSB.

> I do NOT, I repeat, NOT, accept that X, any X libaries, any X tools,
> or anything to do with X is part of a "base."

Well, that makes the LSB useful to about 10% of the application makers out
there.  Your arguments are self-defeating.

> Why confuse the whole issue with X?  May 18th 1998.  Yes 1998, when
> the LSB started.  Where has it gotten?

How do you know?  Where have you been?  I don't recall hearing from you in
the discussion recently...  Again, you seem to be talking a lot, and
producing nothing.  Your "RFC" is simply a diatribe on what your opinions
are and what you don't like about the LSB effort.  I didn't see much
technical discussion in it.

I can't claim to have done any work on the LSB, I'm here mostly to see
what's going on, and maybe find a niche for myself.  But I don't go around
telling other people - _volunteers_ to boot - that they are doing things
"wrong", and that I know what is "correct" and "right", when I have done
no work.

You insult the hard work of many people with comments like that.  I
suggest you re-read your emails before sending them, I find it hard to
believe that you mean to say what you are saying.

I also suggest you submit your ideas in writing -- give us your plan.  I
challenge you to produce a great specification, and we'll go from there.
Right now you are claiming that it's "broke" and "wrong", but you aren't
providing any real solutions other than your undoubtedly valuable
opinions.

All of this circular discussion about your opinions is wasted time, and I
will no longer discuss it.  Please produce specifications and documents,
and leave your opinions at home.  Rewriting the mission statement isn't
enough.  If you say that ten megabytes is the most that the specification
should use, give us a list of the applications and libraries that should
be there.  Again, please produce real work, don't just criticize.

Thanks for your enthusiasm,
Jeffrey.

o-----------------------------------o
| Jeffrey Watts                     |
| watts@jayhawks.net            o-------------------------------------o
| Systems Programmer            | "What George Washington did for us  |
| Sprint - Systems Management   |  was to throw out the British, so   |
o-------------------------------|  that we wouldn't have a fat,       |
                                |  insensitive government running our |
                                |  country.  Nice try anyway,         |
                                |  George."                           |
                                |  -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA                |
                                o-------------------------------------o