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On Monday 09 July 2001 19:43, you wrote: |
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> I was reading in LinuxToday some comments about the LSB and just about |
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> everyone is singing praises to it. |
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> |
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> You may get the specs at |
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> |
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> http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/ |
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> |
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> There are a couple of topics there that would be of concern for Gentoo. One |
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> is the topic of packaging. Packaging addresses binaries and states that RPM |
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> is to be supported. The other is system Init. |
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> |
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> The pages in the specs (PDF format) are not numbered. The section on |
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> packaging start in page 229 (chapter 13) and the one on system init on page |
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> 352 (Chapter 18). I got there using the thumbnails. This is a long |
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> document, almost 400 pages. |
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> |
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> |
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> _______________________________________________ |
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> gentoo-dev mailing list |
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> gentoo-dev@××××××××××.org |
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> http://cvs.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev |
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With all due respect to LSB, I really don't think RPM is a Good Thing. At |
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all. Actually RPM as it exists now doesn't provide the features needed to use |
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it everywhere. Not only Gentoo but Slackware, Debian, etc.... don't support |
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RPM - at least not as their main, preferred way of packaging. |
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The whole point of having many contending distros around is for differences - |
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customization being an issue. |
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The LSB wants things to be _standard_. This means programs working |
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out-of-the-box. In this case, distributed packages working on all |
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distributions. |
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But there's already one such method that always works - configure; make; make |
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install. If LSB says RPMs are better than that, it discourages practicing |
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what is the heart of Portage - automatized downloading, compiling & |
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installing. The LSB should push for standardized results, not for a standard |
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way of achieving them. |
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Whoever wants a pre-compiled package will eventually be able to get it via |
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Portage which already supports binary packages. Whoever gets a package from |
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its home site as source is thus encouraged to write an ebuild for it and give |
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back to the community. RPM availability would desatroy that - Portage and |
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emerge would simply become much less important. |
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Of course, choice is important. So whoever thinks RPMs are good for Gentoo |
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can go ahead and modify Portage/emerge to support them. But people who still |
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think actually compiling a package with the correct optimizations for you CPU |
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is best <gasp> shouldn't be branded non-standard. (Or non-mainstream <gasp>). |
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Well, that's my opinion, for what it's worth. (phew!) |
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Dan Armak |
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