On Mon, May 06, 2002 at 05:19:07PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote: > Previously Jeroen Dekkers wrote: > > Debian is more than GNU/Linux. I see no reason why Debian GNU/Hurd and > > Debian *BSD should follow the LSB. > > This is a discussion we should be having after the release on a forum > like debian-project.
Sure, why not. If there is anything to discuss, that is. > FWIW, I think we should try to use the LSB as much as possible on > all Debian ports. Please note the name: `port'. It is a port of the > Debian system to the Linux, Hurd or BSD kernel. The Hurd is not a kernel. > We want to have the > same Debian everywhere instead of suddenly finding ourselves confroned > with a fork within Debian. It is Debian GNU/Hurd, so there is no way it can not be Debian. As for "the same", there is no way we will follow the LSB up to the ABI specification for example wrt versioned symbols. Nor does it make much sense to do so, except for binary compatibility with GNU/Linux binaries. Which to make it useful in the context of Debian requires a whole lot of more meat into the packaging system. The LSB is necessary to avoid diversity among GNU/Linux distributions. There is only one GNU system, as such no diversity, and all of what the LSB specifies as far as I have seen it (I have not made a thorough analysis) is simply defined by the one implementation of the GNU system. As far as it concerns me, I am not very interested in offering a blanket statement to follow whatever Linux idiosyncrasy a Linux (exclusively!, they don't even pretend to specify anything else, which is quite a long way from the FHS, for example) standard body comes up with. Not to speak of the interesting fact that the LSB specifies everything and their mom except Linux itself (eg the kernel interfaces). Anyway, your expressed concern is unwarranted. In fact, we did in the past some non-trivial work to make it possible to offer the Debian way of doing things on the Hurd as well, and we will certainly continue to do so. There is nothing special in how Debian runs system services, etc, and they can all be supported by the Hurd, and can be made the default in Debian GNU/Hurd if people care enough about it. For example, Roland McGrath split up the init system to make it possible to use a sysv-style init as used by Debian GNU/Linux by default. I don't think that Debian as a whole is interested enough to make policy and design decisions that really fly on all possible systems, including non-Linux systems like GNU/Hurd (thanks to Anthony for reminding me where the priorities are). So you can not expect that everything that is decided now or in the past can be carried over literally to the non-Linux ports. Nor do we have the resources to really follow every decision and cross check it for usability on our port (and if we do in individual cases, we might get flamed for holding up the process against current priorities). I take it that you mean that the Debian spirit (technical excellence, no-worries-approach to installation and upgrading etc) carries over, rather than minute details in current policies, and this, so far as I can see it, is unharmed by the fact that the Debian GNU/Hurd group consists of a merry mix of early Debian members, new members of Debian, and fresh blood. Thanks, Marcus -- `Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
