Bdale,<div><br></div><div>I really appreciate the response! This is exactly the type of discussion I was hoping for :) I am going to counter some of the points you've made, but please don't mistake that for me being argumentative. It is just my personality type to gather a bunch of opinions and then come to a conclusion. Right now I'm just trying to uncover my blind-spots :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>You bring up some interesting points regarding accountability, and some things I hadn't considered; however, I am wondering if the current model is the best way of solving this? When I download software from an ISV's site, isn't it implied that the ISV is responsible for supporting it? And to further that point, won't the ISV be better <i>able</i> to support their own software? Also, I am not sure I understand your point about knowing where your software came from. Maybe it's because of the idea I have in my head of users going to like <a href="http://pidgin.im">pidgin.im</a> or something and downloading a package. I know sometimes users are their own worst enemy, but do you think they wouldn't know where applications came from?</div>
<div><br></div><div>In regards to step 4, rather than implement an "ideal standard" and demand that everyone conform it - which I believe is the downfall of a lot of things Linux - I was thinking of taking a more bottom-up approach. Standards are important for sure, but when we're talking about something so fundamental, I think it's better to lead than push :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am really trying to learn from the mistakes of others and talk to smart people (hi!). Maybe this issue is insurmountable, but I'd like to know that before I start development, not after! So really, thanks for the discussion :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Kate<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Bdale Garbee <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bdale@gag.com">bdale@gag.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 19:40:05 -0600, Katherine Cox <<a href="mailto:cox.katherine.e@gmail.com">cox.katherine.e@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> 4. Foo resolves dependancies and installs the software.<br>
<div class="im">><br>
> I am intentionally being vague with step 4. Rather than biasing everyone<br>
> with my ideas, I'd like to first see if people even think this usage case is<br>
> a *good* idea and if so, see if anyone had ideas on how to implement<br>
> it? What does the everyone think?<br>
<br>
</div>Ok, I'll bite.<br>
<br>
There are a range of opinions about how important it is to understand<br>
explicitly where the software running on your system came from, who is<br>
going to support it when something doesn't work as expected, and who<br>
should be responsible for keeping track of that. I would suggest that<br>
you think hard about this and understand what subset of the potential<br>
users of Linux would consider this sort of decentralized approach a<br>
feature, and then build out from there.<br>
<br>
>From a technical standpoint, the challenge you face is precisely in<br>
turning step 4 from something vague into specific details of a proposed<br>
implementation. For this to work the way you imply, I think you will at<br>
least need to regularize the way dependencies are expressed, comprehend<br>
the rich set of sources from which dependencies might come, get *everyone*<br>
to agree on a common meta-data standard... and then you need to<br>
completely re-factor the way people think about and approach getting<br>
support for their software.<br>
<br>
I suspect that as you learn more about the LSB and the challenges it has<br>
faced, you'll come to understand that solving every challenge it ever<br>
aspired to overcome is but the first step in the technical side of this<br>
particular journey... Perhaps not insurmountable, but an *intense*<br>
challenge!<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Bdale<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br></div>