Ubuntu installers?

[ubuntu at howorth.org.uk]

mfioretti at nexaima.net wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 10:40:57 AM +0000, ubuntu at howorth.org.uk wrote:

> I started using Linux when Yggdrasil was still available, and written
> hundreds of articles about Linux and FOSS in general (*). While I am
> NOT a developer, I do understand "how developers work or how distros
> interact with them" well enough to understand what you mean and why
> you say so. As for this:

That's a good basis of agreement :)

> > If I am, for example, a perl developer, then I load all the modules
> > I need from CPAN using cpanm and I upload the modules I write to
> > CPAN. Job done.  
> 
> I do understand what you wrote, and why that way of working is easier
> for a developer, if nothing else because it's cross platform.

More agreement, good :)

> My point is that it doesn't scale at the other end, quite the
> contrary. When every community of developers does this, the result
> still is a really ugly mess for everybody with even the simplest need
> to use tools in more than one language, on whatever OS.

I understand what you're saying here, because I find similar
situations. Some of the other correspondents argue that the 'simplest
need' doesn't include software that doesn't come from the distro, or
that importing and necessarily building a (e.g.) perl program from
somewhere makes you a developer.

But unless and until there is a development/packaging/distribution
system that is accepted and used by all developers everywhere I don't
see how to square your circle.

And I don't see any likelihood of such a thing being possible, let
alone desirable.

> I remember the days when, WITHOUT being a developer, I could and did
> install from source all sorts of FOSS because, no matter what it was
> and yes, with the serious exception of CPAN stuff, it always resolved
> to some simple variant of
> 
> make config; make; make install
> 
> yes, one had to hunt for dependencies sometimes, which was time
> consuming and not pretty. But frankly what I have to do these days
> every time I have to upgrade doesn't feel any better.
> 
> I may have to accept that nothing better is possible. But calling it
> progress or freedom of choice still seems a joke.

Hmm, so I went back to the start of this thread (I think!) and read your
first post, which is very short because it's basically just a link. I
confess I didn't click on that link before (as a matter of good hygiene
and pure laziness) but I see it says much the same as we've just been
discussing.

And I see that it says your proposed solution is to first become a
billionaire and then to bribe developers to operate in your desired
way. But I can see a couple of problems with that.

The second problem is that I think it would be VERY expensive to bribe a
developer to NOT do something they already do. Shades of restricting
freedom etc. So I don't think that solution is a starter. Any other
ideas? Otherwise I think you've already accepted the Tower of Babel.

And yes, I've programmed in lots of languages and on lots of systems
and they have all had their different ways. Plus ça change.

>       Marco