sane dependencies -- a positive look at 'fix your packages'

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le lun 13/10/2003 à 16:54, Sean Middleditch a écrit :
> On Sun, 2003-10-12 at 12:51, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:

> > 
> > (I case people wonder - I've just documented the installation of an app
> > that used a custom installer clearly written by a brainwashed
> > monopolysoft user. Just documenting this single installation took as
> > many pages as the ones devoted to updating the whole multi-hundred rpm
> > system)
> 
> Ya... let's keep this to technical facts, not "brainwashed Free Software
> user" paranoia.  Thanks. ;-)

Sure.
Call all the useless screens I've had to document paranoïa if you wish.
I do know the exact cost user-wise of the two approaches, because I had
to document it, and then validate the doc with test users.
I do not assume anything. I spent lots of time validating this. Did you?

> Installation problems on Linux I've run into are almost always because
> of RPM.  If RPMs usually supported more than on particular snapshot of a
> particular distro, if RPMs actually worked on all distros, and if RPM
> had abilities to ask users install questions, select software
> components, agree to legally-required EULAs (there's doubt that even the
> GPL is really valid if the user is never forced to agree to it, or even
> *see* it, to use the software), etc

No.
There is absolutely no doubt in any lawyer mind that click-thoughts are
totally irrelevant legally (or at least in most of the sane world).

The function they serve is purely to frighten users into doing slavishly
whatever the vendor wants them to do (see the Dell EULA-in-BIOS story -
the EULA was so extreme there was no way anyone could reasonably abide
by it). Plus of course they target specifically the US legal system,
even for software that distributed half a world away.

> . then software developers probably
> wouldn't need to rely on hacked-up installers.

Yep. And most of the people here would be using something else. You put
the garbage into the installer - sane people will jump out of your ship.

> As is, even most of the companies that ship RPMs generally need to wrap
> them in shell scripts or other hacks in order to "add" the features RPM
> denies them.  Look at the Macromedia Flash, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Sun
> Java installs (I think those are the ones that use wrapped RPMs), for
> example.

So what ?
A commercial house will put whatever it can get by in the installer.
The big difference between Windows and Linux is so far it can get by
with a lot less dirty tricks.

(and don't bring the thing Sun calls a java rpm in the discussion - I
can assure you I spent enough time refactoring it into sanity I know it
by heart)

The nice RH people have proved over time you can package anything in
rpms - from web server to office suites, from home-developed apps to big
commercial bloatware (oo)

All the things you're clamouring for *have not a single technical
justification*. Period. You don't want them because the user needs or
wants them, or because they will improve the system. You want them so
people can use Linux just like another windows, with just the same
habits that ruin everyday windows user life, and so commercial houses
can issue the same junk as they are used to.

And you can write all you want about it not being as bad as I describe
it. A lot of other people here have enough daily exposition to that
other OS to know what it can do and how.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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