Re: SEUL: Distribution of applications

[lso8219@cs.rit.edu (Loren S Osborn)]

> In message <199801132115.QAA01585@buddy.rit.edu>, lso8219@cs.rit.edu writes:
> >> I might be stating the obvious here, but when you buy MS-Office (not
> >> that I have), you don't recieve several hundred megabytes of source
> >> code.
> >> 
> >>  I have nothing against source code being distributed for free, but
> >> shouldn't the seul project be encouraging apps to have a pre-compiled
> >> version that can be configured (for most purposes) from a config file
> >> instead of having to recompile. I personally would like to just be able
> >> to download a ready-to-go compiled version of applications.
> >
> >Ideally, I have little problem with binary-only distribution, but many unix
> >programs have compile time options that need to be changed from system to
> >system.  A prime example is ghostscript... Also, under unix, compiling a app
> >locally usually custom-fits it to your system... 
> >
> >Comments? Suggestions?
> >
> >Loren
> 
> Well, RPM and other packagers install binaries. As for compile-time options,
> the whole point of a distribution like SEUL is that all the binaries are
> already custom-fit to the system, because we set everything up to work well
> together. People will get source if they want to futz with things, but there
> should be no reason why they will *have* to do this. If a program requires
> compile-time configuration to work correctly (I'm told postgreSQL works
> this way, for deciding what db interface modules to use), then we have a
> problem. Ideally, we'd pick a configuration that will be acceptable for
> most people, and if that doesn't work well enough either provide a front-end
> for reconfiguring it, or pick a different application that has more friendly
> behavior? I dunno.

*THAT* is exactly what I'm saying... provide a *UNIFORM* front-end to
re-compile/re-configure *ALL* packages, that will work for both e-linux
and SEUL, then on the SEUL version, hide all non-essential configuration...

Is this not simple?? (Conceptually anyway..)

Comments? Suggestions?

Loren