Re: SEUL: About Independence, LaetOs, RedHat and Debian

[Al Hudson <eah106@york.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Dennis Leeuw wrote:

> > One last thing about RH - I think I read in various places, probably /.,
> > that they're opposed to LSB - is this a good thing?
> They are part of it. Atleast they are mentioned on the LSB main page:
> http://www.linuxbase.org

I was thinking of this article I read (linked off of /. ) :
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/26/redhat.idg/

To be honest, reading the ./ article again, I don't think people are
taking it too seriously - another case of my hazy memory for these things.

> Cheers to you Alex. Exactly my point. Define a set of programs, DEs, window
> managers, x-servers and libraries that you can rely on. That should make a fair
> system to build software for. This way you reach two goals. Developers know what
> they can expect, so hopefully more development (commercial), next the user
> benefits, because all software that complies will run without any hassle.

Yep. I think, though, that we should make a clear separatation between
things that we could put in a base, and things that we should put in a
standard base. E.g., for my money there should be one program that
installs/removes all software - user places CDROM in drive, hits 'Add this
software' button (or, alternatively, 'bloat my computer some more' ;) and
it does it. I certainly would use that, not out of being incompetent, but
being extraordinarily lazy ;). This is software that I think *should* be
in a standard base, however it *could* not be - it hasn't been written
yet. Of course, the two lists would be interconnected in a number of ways,
but the stuff we can put in a base is right here, right now, whereas the
stuff we should put in a base isn't necessarily. So we kind of have two
separate discussions right there, which it would be easy to muddle. 
Also, where do we draw the line at 'base'? For example, should a base
contain applications as well as systems (if you see what I mean!)? For
example, I would have thought including gimp in the base would be a bad
idea - really, at that level I would say it's completely up to the user
what they want on their computer. If they want gimp, they get the cd and
click 'install'. However, the line becomes more fuzzy at KDE/GNOME
level/wmanager level. I would have thought one or other or both should be
included, but is this wise? I personally run KDE, but equally I'm looking
to change to GNOME to give that a go. I may even go back to having wmaker.
Choice like this is great, but confusing. Is this an argument against or
for having it in the standard base? Possible against. . . for example, if
someone walks into PC-Price-Rite and says 'I want to wordprocess and surf,
with the possibility of doing more in the future. Give me your grayest
box', do we sell them:
standard base + Staroffice + Netscape, or
standard base + KDE + KDEOffice + KDESurfer (for a made-up example)
i.e., are we making the apps part of a big suite at a lower level? Are we
looking at creating something MSOffice like, with it's large family of
compatible programs, or something more pick'n'mix?
With one big family affair, or several different families to choose from
(GNOME + GNOMEoffice + GNOMEmozilla, versus KDE..etc ;), the user goes in
and says 'I have GNOME. Give me wordprocessor', and there is just one
choice, the wordprocessor that's the member of the GNOME family, and
integrates completely with their suite. I've gone on far to long here with
this example, so back to the original question, where to we stop adding
stuff to the base?

Cheers,

Alex.