[Wolves] Do I hate Linux?

[Richard Smedley]

On Sun, 2008-06-15 at 17:06 +0100, Alex Willmer wrote:
> However Linux Hater's point is valid. For certain users, such as
> Independent Software Vendors, the installation system is less than
> perfect. Having to target N packaging formats and M
> distributions/releases is harder than creating a single executable that
> covers most Windows versions.

Well creating both a universal RPM, and a deb for the
latest LTS Ubuntu (which will work for given versions
of Debian) may be more work than just making one package,
but that is a choice - either the ISV *wants* to take
advantage of packaging systems, or needs to work with
dependencies which licence compatibility issues
prevent her distributing with the binary.

The option of distributing an installer for a massive
(statically-linked) package remains. Didn't early
editions of Star Office ship this way? You just
specify minimum kernel 2.2.12 or whatever, and nearly
everyone can use it.

> Ideally from our POV, the ISV would release the source, we'd package it
> and all would be well. Ideally from the ISV's POV, we would agree on a
> single distro/package standard, stick to it and all would be well.
> Realistically neither of those will happen soon, so here we are.

Well, considering several proprietary projects become
Free Software every year, and very few move in the
other direction, our POV is prevailing - even if
it's not all happening as unrealistically quickly
as some would like ;^)

 - Richard
/me puzzled that the OP never even made it to my spam filter,
    let alone my inbox :-/

-- 

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