Auto Package

[Gavin Hemphill]

I'm sorry Mike but I'm one user (and advocate of ubuntu in a significant 
user community in the Canadian Government) that disagrees with you.  
Users want stability first and the latest "x" only after they have 
become relatively competent with Linux in general.  System 
administration and help desk support for the average user mandate 
stability first.
    G++

Mike Hearn wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 11:33:16 -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>  
>
>>I entirely disagree; the reason we provide stable releases is because users
>>want them.  Distribution developers generally follow the leading edge.
>>    
>>
>
>I'd say users actually want the ability to install up to date software,
>without hitting the "E: Broken packages" error (and without having it mess
>up menus etc). Package/repository freezes are one way to accomplish that,
>but they're a means to an end from Joe Users perspective. There are other
>means to that same end.
>
>  
>
>>Consider that Ubuntu ships pretty much the same software packages as
>>everyone else.  The entirety of what distinguishes us from other
>>distributions is the work that we put into our packages, enabling them
>>to work well as a complete system.
>>    
>>
>
>I think this is the main philosophical difference. You see the "system" as
>being everything that Ubuntu ships in main, whereas I see the system as
>more the core of the OS plus a few must-have utility apps. Pretty vague I
>know, what Windows/MacOSX ship is a fairly good template. So GNOME would
>be in the core, whereas Inkscape wouldn't be. And Gaim is an edge case.
>
>So I'd say the things that make Ubuntu attractive are features of a good
>operating system. That means slick desktop, good installer, UTF-8 by
>default, good tech support and so on. The type of things that make MacOS
>X good despite not having apt, in other words.
>
>  
>
>>The issues you raise are:
>>
>>- .deb packaging is too complicated.  The solution to this is to make
>>  .deb packaging easier, not to replace a mature and robust packaging
>>  system with something more like autopackage.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't think this is really true and it's certainly not an issue I
>raised.
>
>I never heard anybody complain that they tried to make a deb and
>failed, or that they would if they had more time. I think it's more a case
>of there being more distributions than just Debian in the world, so some
>developers provide Fedora RPMs, some provide Slackpacks, some don't
>provide anything at all. Eventually some Debian user may come along and
>produce a package, but there are no guarantees.
> 
>  
>
>>- There is sometimes a shortage of motivation to create packages.  This
>>  is not a technical problem, and is shared equally by any packaging
>>  solution.
>>    
>>
>
>I disagree. If a developer of a cool new widget could make one package,
>that works for all Linux users (that's a huge portion of their userbase,
>most likely) that does increase the incentive to produce a package over a
>kind that only works for maybe 5% of their userbase.
>
>  
>
>>- Access rights don't really enter into the equation.  
>>    
>>
>
>OK then.
>
>  
>
>>It doesn't provide any packaging metadata, either.  No debian/, no
>>.spec, no .package.
>>    
>>
>
>No, but Murray Cumming has said before that he was going to stop
>development on Glom for a while until it was packaged, because otherwise
>it was too hard to get lots of testing (I paraphrase, but that was the
>gist of it). Maybe if he only had to do it once, he would have produced a
>package. Yes, it's speculation ...
>
>  
>
>>The basic desire here is for new pieces of software, and new releases of
>>software, to be integrated more quickly.  Things which promote this are...
>>    
>>
>
>Well, I believe this is optimising the wrong design. Unless Debian or
>Ubuntu become the de-facto standard Linux distro I don't think it would
>ever be guaranteed that a user always has an up to date package available.
>
>This is the guarantee that MacOS X and Windows provide, so to be
>competitive with them we must also provide it. But how can we, when even
>with over 1000 volunteers Debian has not managed to do this?
>
>I suppose we will have to agree to disagree on this one ;)
>
>thanks -mike
>
>
>  
>

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