Multilib Middle-Ground

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Fri May 2 20:29:59 UTC 2008


Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 10:14 AM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  This particular thread is about a specific change proposed for fedora -
>> which if made will make it more complicated to install VMWare and probably
>> many other things. Others have been about how other distributions make
>> things easier for their users.  Or how it is bad that fedora no longer works
>> with japackage.org.  By nature, those things are fedora-specific.
> 
> There no 'standard' by which to measure the value of change. If all
> distros are doing things differently you can't single us out for
> making a change that breaks cross-distro compatibility that doesn't
> already exist. The only thing you've pointed to so far is LSB... are
> you attempting to claim we are breaking LSB with this change?  

No, just that LSB is currently the worst of all worlds.  That is, if 
you've moved anything to comply with it you've broken your own backwards 
compatibility and not really gained anything because it doesn't go far 
enough to provide the real value of portable and predictable installs 
across versions.  Until it dictates portability it is just a moving 
target of arbitrary locations.

 > Things
> are already incompatible.. in a non-standardized way. By putting your
> foot down and demanding that we stop our own process to evolve you
> aren't solving the underlying problem.

Agreed - it's not just your problem.

> Stagnation is not
> standardization.

They aren't opposing concepts.  It is always possible to maintain 
standards while adding new ones.

> No matter how we get their...cross-distro
> standardization is going to involve change in how each distro
> currently does things... so change is unavoidable no matter what
> happens.  You are arguing for the wrong thing.

Perhaps, but fedora is one of the worst distributions to keep anything 
working consistently for years because of its rapid internal changes. 
If you can't use something consistent as the example for a standard, how 
is it ever going to improve?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com





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