Re: The Kernel

[George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org>]

On 20 Jan 1998 john@dhh.gt.org wrote:

> George Bonser writes:
> > The more I think about it, the more I think that core sould NOT be debian
> > packages because that enforces a certain filesystem layout and I think we
> > might want to give the various distributions the freedom to put things
> > where they will.
> 
> Debian is FSSTND compliant, and will be moving to FSH as soon as possible.
> Seems to me that requiring FSH is a pretty basic part of a core standard.

Here are the problems with having .deb packaged binaries for core:

1) Requires all distributions to have dpkg.

2) Enforces Debian filesystem structure on all distributions

3) Enforces Debian policy pertaining to individual package configuration
   on every distribution.

4) Is therefore likely to be adopted only by Debian.

In my opinion, the point of a core is to give a reference for programmers.
If a program is core 1.0 compliant, it will run on any distribution that
is core-1.0 compliant.  It may need a symlink, environment variable, or
Makefile edit to find a piece of the core but all the pieces are
guaranteed to be there.

We gain nothing by trying to dictate to Red Hat or Caldera how they should
build their distribution.  The SEUL distribution will follow Debian's
model. If we play our cards right, remain patient, and do the right thing,
we will succeed and eventually, as time goes by, the differences between
us will diminish.

With commercial distributions, it usually goes something like this
(opinion): If you are willing to develop things for them where they
control the development but you provide the labor, they are happy to
include your output in their distribution.  You then become a free labor
pool that they can profit from with real hard cash.  If you start getting
"uppity" and start making decisions that benefit the project and not
the commercial distribution, they are likely to drop you as "not in line
with our long range plans". Which translated means "We can not rely on you
following our long range plans".

Debian is a completely free distribution.  They stand nothing to gain from
our project other than more work, more bugs, and more newbie questions in
debian-user though we will probably take the brunt of these. 


George Bonser 
If NT is the answer, you didn't understand the question. (NOTE: Stolen sig)
http://www.debian.org
Debian/GNU Linux ... the maintainable operating system.