Re: new port: and the winner is....
On Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:42:31AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: The point being? We do not have to waste time with that now, at least not with the kernel. We still need not to get too trigger happy with hardware and firmware, but otherwise... I won't help a Microsoft windows port. I expect a lot of others not to. It does not mean I'll lose my time trying to block such a port, but I *will* take time to stop such a port from tainting the Debian name (if someone pushes for it to become an officially supported port in the archive) UNTIL there is a DFSG-compliant kernel for it to run on top of. Hmmm..., anybody considering a port to one of the FreeDOS arch's? (there may only be one, but I can't remember anymore) There are debian packages out there for commercial X servers after all...
Re: new port: and the winner is....
On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 05:00:48PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Richard B. Kreckel wrote: The social contract says Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software. Such a win-port might indeed serve some users. But for my own part, I do have some personal problems with making all free software win-compatible. Does it serve Free Software? Such ports frequently lead to crippled design [1] and frankly, I do not like to give people more excuses for not switching to an entirely free OS. Well, we cannot have Debian that runs over the Microsoft Windows(TM) kernel, since the Windows kernel is an extremely non-free component, and nothing on Debian can have a dependency on non-free *software*. Therefore there will never be a Debian for arch Windows (or whatever it gets called). This view may be a little narrow. Many of the current debian architectures depend on non-free software in the bootstrapping process (e.g. BIOSes). And don't forget that before linux, free software was developed on non-free OSes most of the time... Jules
Re: new port: and the winner is....
On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Jules Bean wrote: On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 05:00:48PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Richard B. Kreckel wrote: The social contract says Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software. Such a win-port might indeed serve some users. But for my own part, I do have some personal problems with making all free software win-compatible. Does it serve Free Software? Such ports frequently lead to crippled design [1] and frankly, I do not like to give people more excuses for not switching to an entirely free OS. Well, we cannot have Debian that runs over the Microsoft Windows(TM) kernel, since the Windows kernel is an extremely non-free component, and nothing on Debian can have a dependency on non-free *software*. Therefore there will never be a Debian for arch Windows (or whatever it gets called). This view may be a little narrow. Well, I obviously don't think so... Many of the current debian architectures depend on non-free software in the bootstrapping process (e.g. BIOSes). You mean firmware? We consider non-free firmware _shadow_ dependency (i.e. the firmware needs to be there, but is not manipulated directly by the package) ok in Debian. Kernels, we do not. Also, I don't see BIOS and hardware makers playing hard-ball with the Free software community like Microsoft does. *I* think of it as sleeping with a bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral enemy in MS Windows case. And if it were another non-free kernel (like BeOS, QNX...), I'd think of it as simply a poor allocation of resources. And don't forget that before linux, free software was developed on non-free OSes most of the time... The point being? We do not have to waste time with that now, at least not with the kernel. We still need not to get too trigger happy with hardware and firmware, but otherwise... I won't help a Microsoft windows port. I expect a lot of others not to. It does not mean I'll lose my time trying to block such a port, but I *will* take time to stop such a port from tainting the Debian name (if someone pushes for it to become an officially supported port in the archive) UNTIL there is a DFSG-compliant kernel for it to run on top of. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh
Re: new port: and the winner is....
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh [EMAIL PROTECTED] immo vero scripsit Someone could always port Debian to the Windows kernel, but they should not call it Debian anymore, and it has no place in our archives (because it is contrib [or non-free?] and too big to be inserted in the contrib distribution). Of course, if we manage to have a working ReactOS, things will be different. Until then, we will have a very contrib system. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer
Re: new port: and the winner is....
I agree totaly with you.. Manuel Segura Richard B. Kreckel a écrit : Hi, On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, A Mennucc1 wrote: [...] -why is the 'win' port important? [...] (Sorry for dropping in late to this thread, I was too busy lately to follow debian-devel tightly.) The social contract says Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software. Such a win-port might indeed serve some users. But for my own part, I do have some personal problems with making all free software win-compatible. Does it serve Free Software? Such ports frequently lead to crippled design [1] and frankly, I do not like to give people more excuses for not switching to an entirely free OS. The one argument I am missing from the discussion is this: The porters find some problem with package foo and file a bugreport (most probably critical) to the maintainer of foo who has to look into the problem, withdrawing time for more important things than a weird port. It has happened before [2] and it will happen again. We really shouldn't invite everything into Debian. It will distract us from providing a really useful free OS. For my own part, the mere thought of receiving reports like package bar doesn't build on win gives me the creeps. I would have to log in to one of those crippled machines, try to fix scripts, makefiles, code, whatnot. Ugh. Instead, I would consider downgrading the bugreport to wishlist/wontfix. Regards -richy. [1] Why does Apache have to abstract away their threads? Right, because Winsux doesn't have pthreads. Admittedly, this might be a little off-topic because that is for a native port, but that's the basic pattern. [2] Look at the parisc port: GCC-3.0 is not even officially supported upstream and the entire toolchain seems to be changing frequently. Some packages build one day but not the next. I wonder how they want to release that stuff. -- .''`. Richard B. Kreckel : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `' [EMAIL PROTECTED] `-http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- Manuel Segura ESCPI - CNAM ---
Re: new port: and the winner is....
Hi, On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, A Mennucc1 wrote: [...] -why is the 'win' port important? [...] (Sorry for dropping in late to this thread, I was too busy lately to follow debian-devel tightly.) The social contract says Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software. Such a win-port might indeed serve some users. But for my own part, I do have some personal problems with making all free software win-compatible. Does it serve Free Software? Such ports frequently lead to crippled design [1] and frankly, I do not like to give people more excuses for not switching to an entirely free OS. The one argument I am missing from the discussion is this: The porters find some problem with package foo and file a bugreport (most probably critical) to the maintainer of foo who has to look into the problem, withdrawing time for more important things than a weird port. It has happened before [2] and it will happen again. We really shouldn't invite everything into Debian. It will distract us from providing a really useful free OS. For my own part, the mere thought of receiving reports like package bar doesn't build on win gives me the creeps. I would have to log in to one of those crippled machines, try to fix scripts, makefiles, code, whatnot. Ugh. Instead, I would consider downgrading the bugreport to wishlist/wontfix. Regards -richy. [1] Why does Apache have to abstract away their threads? Right, because Winsux doesn't have pthreads. Admittedly, this might be a little off-topic because that is for a native port, but that's the basic pattern. [2] Look at the parisc port: GCC-3.0 is not even officially supported upstream and the entire toolchain seems to be changing frequently. Some packages build one day but not the next. I wonder how they want to release that stuff. -- .''`. Richard B. Kreckel : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `' [EMAIL PROTECTED] `-http://www.ginac.de/~kreckel/
Re: new port: and the winner is....
On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Richard B. Kreckel wrote: The social contract says Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software. Such a win-port might indeed serve some users. But for my own part, I do have some personal problems with making all free software win-compatible. Does it serve Free Software? Such ports frequently lead to crippled design [1] and frankly, I do not like to give people more excuses for not switching to an entirely free OS. Well, we cannot have Debian that runs over the Microsoft Windows(TM) kernel, since the Windows kernel is an extremely non-free component, and nothing on Debian can have a dependency on non-free *software*. Therefore there will never be a Debian for arch Windows (or whatever it gets called). Someone could always port Debian to the Windows kernel, but they should not call it Debian anymore, and it has no place in our archives (because it is contrib [or non-free?] and too big to be inserted in the contrib distribution). find some problem with package foo and file a bugreport (most probably critical) to the maintainer of foo who has to look into the problem, [...] Instead, I would consider downgrading the bugreport to wishlist/wontfix. I have no idea how others would deal with it, but I'd file it under won't fix, wishlist (unless it is a honest-to-goodness bug that should be fixed just by the pleasure of stomping one of those critters). Oh, I could be persuated to fix such a bug if I am upstream for the package OR if someone will pay me enough to generate even more Debian time (because I'll need to divert less time to keep myself fed and clothed). But I will not lose any of my Debian time to a non-free port. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh
Re: new port: and the winner is....
hi On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 12:21:41PM +0300, Richard Braakman wrote: On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 10:32:19PM +0200, Carsten Leonhardt wrote: A Mennucc1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why? well, there was no big consenous on any name; so I looked at the problem the other way around, and saw that nobody was actually against 'win', but for [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Janusz S. Biee?), who said that In hacker language, calling something a win is a form of praise. We don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it win. I guess (I hope!) that's because one person gave a good reason, and the rest didn't want to write ME TOO! messages. Please reconsider. Sigh. Yes, the quote also represented my opinion perfectly, so I saw no need to add a me-too. A Mennucc1, please don't make a habit of _counting_ arguments to determine their relevance. It's not very useful, and if it becomes a popular habit it will just increase the noise level. I don't want to see this mailing list devolve into a shouting-the-loudest contest.[1] I am not counting arguments as I would count ballots; I am just acknowledging them. savour the difference If you want to settle something by vote, then hold an actual vote. see next e-mail but this does not apply here; I indeed hope that 'Debian GNU/win' will be a 'win' :-) A win of what? You never actually said what you intend to achieve with it. did you read my whole e-mail? it is explained clearly! didnt you see a piece starting as '-why is the 'win' port important?' (and I even used these section markers to make my e-mail more readable!) I'd recommend w32, but seeing that your mailinglist is already named win32, you could go for that. I reluctantly agree with Carsten here. I'd rather not have the win appear at all, but there doesn't seem to be another name for the family of 32-bit operating systems in the microsoft windows series. (On the other hand, cygnus might be a more accurate description of your platform.) By the way, it can't be GNU/win. The GNU system is defined as a free operating system, so it can't have a Windows kernel. see next e-mail a. -- A Mennucc È un mondo difficile. Che vita intensa! (Renato Carotone)
Re: new port: and the winner is....
On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 01:09:03PM +0200, Richard Atterer wrote: Mingw requires that the program actually be able to build on a win32 system, but produces code that runs much faster, is far more stable in my experience, and competes head to head with the same app compiled for MSVC versions 4 and 6. Yes, but using mingw for the port is out of the question IMHO. If you tried that, you'd end up re-implementing Cygwin... That's not a problem if what resulted was not as buggy and otherwise broken as cygwin tends to be. -- Joseph Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Free software developer Feb 5 13:27:01 trinity lp0 on fire -- the Linux kernel, alerting me that there was some unknown problem with my printer (ie, it was out of ink) pgp3S5p5WZUT3.pgp Description: PGP signature
