Installing a compiler by default

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 10:32:06AM +0200, Stephan Hermann wrote:
> This percentage has to and will change in the not far away future. And 
> then we will have a percentage of 70:30 or 80:20 where 70-80% of the 
> Ubuntu Users are just working with their system, and they don't want to 
> think about "How do I compile a Kernel Module or my freshest gnome". 
> Therefore, to move closer to this goal, we should concentrate more on 
> the OS itself (stabilizing the kernel, supporting more hardware, 
> delivering more stable software, showing off a better user experience 
> then Windows will do etc.) and not on the developers "ranting" about a 
> missing compiler by default.
> Ubuntu just works, with or without a compiler.

It would take only a few minutes of developer time to make this change;
there really isn't a reason to worry about how we spend our resources where
this matter is concerned.

We can live and work in the present while still working toward a better
future.

> "And yes, there is a difference between Ubuntu and other distros. The 
> main difference is, that many of us are focused on the Users needs, 
> which are, as well, our needs. We're not focused on our own 
> needs...because when one thing works for the user, it will work for me 
> as well."
> (Permalink: 
> http://linux.blogweb.de/archives/103-Andres-Salomon-more-usability.html)
> 
> And that is what I believe and this is one of my goals for 
> {K,X,EDU}Ubuntu. It just works for the user, and it just works for me, 
> too, without a compiler installed.

It would still Just Work for everyone it currently does, even with a
compiler installed.  There simply isn't that sort of cost associated with
it.

Starting to ship gcc doesn't mean throwing away the work that we've done, or
changing our approach in the future either.  I recognize that some of you
see the lack of development tools as a political statement, but in this
case, I think that a pragmatic approach is more beneficial than a political
one.

> Some drivers, even they could be included, are so buggy, that even 
> compiling this driver will help you breaking your running system. This 
> we should avoid, for the user's sake.

The fact that some software is buggy does not mean that we shouldn't make it
easier for users to install software.  There are packages in universe which
I wouldn't touch myself, but for the few users who need them, their
availability is a key benefit.

> To be frank, I would like to remove the build-essentials from the CD as 
> well, because this would give us a minimal ammount of more free space  
> on that media, to include other, much more needed software for the 
> user. 

I do hope that one day we will be able to do this, and (for example) ship
more complete language support instead.  However, this is not practical
today.

> The software developer faction do know where to find their utils, and 
> they have to download (new and fresh) software from the internet, so 
> the argument, that some people don't have internet connection, or 
> better to say, a low bandwidth internet connection, doesn't count, 
> because even then, they would download their new kernel modules, gcc, 
> amarok, or their new gnome or kde by ftp, http or 
> cvs/svn/bzr/tla/git/etc

Kernel modules are generally trivially small, orders of magnitude smaller
than the development tools we are discussing here, and I'm taking the
position that gcc, in this age of Linux, is useful infrastructure for some
users as much as it is a developer tool.

-- 
 - mdz