Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Thus spake dircha: # Paul Johnson wrote: # What's wrong with, Make me a Debian package or lose a customer? # # I'd venture to guess: # We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a # Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest # in it... If an ISV really had to maintain packages of their proprietary software for every possible distro their customers may be using it probably would be quite time consuming. Actually, probably the best way for an ISV to distribute their proprietary software would be in something like makeself or their own proprietary equivalent. It could be made to check for its dependencies based on the files (not packages) installed on the system, and it could even automatically download and/or install the packages it needs based on the distro if they so desire. This would truly be a cross-distro package. It wouldn't have to rely on a distro, debian or otherwise, to be properly installed and fully functional. This would be by far the best way for vendors to release their software, because it wouldn't matter what Linux their customers are using. PRINCE -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Jaldhar H. Vyas [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, 18 May 2004, Paul Johnson wrote: Anything proprietary is automatically a toy to me. ...which is why your opinion is utterly worthless. I'm not asking anyone to like proprietary software or the corporate environment but at least know your enemy if nothing else. I know my enemy. I'm stuck in a Windows environment at work, and unfortunately I'm nowhere near the decision making process on that. I'm not impressed. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgpqFgFmlCq10.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Incoming from Paul Johnson: dircha [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Paul Johnson wrote: What's wrong with, Make me a Debian package or lose a customer? I'd venture to guess: We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest in it... So don't tollerate clueless vendors. Go find someone else. If you're Paul's Boss: Paul, we need to install Oracle. Do it. Paul: They don't make a Debian port. Pick something else. Paul's Boss: Eh? Somebody wanna get Paul out of here? I've had enough of him. -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling - - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Paul Johnson wrote: My understanding is this is a vocal minority decreasing in size as more good, free software comes out. You are thinking perhaps of of office productivity software? Proprietary software is sort of a band-aid for a real solution, or a toy for after work. A toy for after work, like a game? Hahaha! That is a good one. Check out these two prominant, non-oracle examples. Both high profile chip design software companies. And they don't come cheap. You won't see any prices there. Ever eat in a restaurant with no prices on the menu? It's kind'a like that. These are fairly representative of my corporate world. http://www.cadence.com/support/computing/32bit.aspx http://www.synopsys.com/products/platforms_roadmap.html Interesting, rarely do companies like these deliver rpms. Instead they usually have custom installation scripts for their tar files. This comes because they install on HP-UX and Solaris well before being ported to our favorite system. Bob pgpqbcBWkM8Nu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
On Tuesday 18 May 2004 07:00, Paul Johnson wrote: Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome it's own shortcomings to stop sucking. Such as, 1) distro-dependent RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is. 2) Naming conventions. RPM isn't standardized. 3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2. 4) QA in RPM based distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and 3 and making headlines as it does. Aren't 1 and 2 caused largely by the fact that several different distros use and produce RPMs whereas (as far as I know) only Debian uses deb packages and people produce them specifically for Debian? (I'm not trying to stir up trouble: please correct me if I'm wrong.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
On Tuesday 18 May 2004 07:00, Paul Johnson wrote: Dominique Dumont wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting the reverse. A native packaging is always best. Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system, this would be a good message sent to the corporate world. Ian Murdock [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote the following a while back. I am very interested in how it turns out. http://lists.progeny.com/archive/discover-workers/200310/msg0.html Summary snippet: We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions (e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT. Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome it's own shortcomings to stop sucking. Such as, 1) distro-dependent RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is. 2) Naming conventions. RPM isn't standardized. 3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2. 4) QA in RPM based distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and 3 and making headlines as it does. The clean fix would be to go back in time, kill the people who thought RPM was a good idea and make sure the Debian folks do what they did anyway, but we can't have everything. 8:o) Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). I understand what you are saying. But they can install oracle and others today. My comment is that they want a vendor supported installation of the vendor application. Not an installation that a Debian expert made happen. It's 2004. Linux is the second most common OS and Debian is the distro with the largest Linux market share from what I've been hearing lately. There is *ZERO* excuse for companies supporting Linux not to have .debs if they're distributing in binary form, they need to Debianize or hit the grave. If you alien the RH package and try to install it on Debian it will install fine. Programs will work. But then eventually you will install a Debian package which requires not ncurses4 but libncurses4. Number 2 and Number 4 from above apply. Personally, yes. I think many people have that ideal. It is written into the Social Contract. But the recent Debian Social Contract vote casts that as a majority opinion into doubt. So now I don't know. A contingent of vocal DDs would certainly say no. My understanding is this is a vocal minority decreasing in size as more good, free software comes out. Proprietary software is sort of a band-aid for a real solution, or a toy for after work. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tim Connors [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said on Mon, 17 May 2004 22:37:44 -0700: dircha [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd venture to guess: We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest in it... So don't tollerate clueless vendors. Go find someone else. If you're going to spend money on software, why spend it on software that sucks? Because all software sucks. And if it doesn't the hardware sucks. And if *it* doesn't, then the firmware must surely suck. Debian. Because software doesn't have to suck. http://debian.org/ - -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAqcbZUzgNqloQMwcRAvtHAKCy3izKDTh0nx9r0JX0xWT5x6CWmgCggoho szDXB5fv6fqzTpwmGhricR4= =yOyg -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
on Mon, May 17, 2004 at 11:07:01AM +0200, Dominique Dumont ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: and I found that it can't find files it need in deb DB,I had been tried to install it on debian, #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm the program will prompt: myproduct need perl 5.6, and the bash must be installed As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting the reverse. A native packaging is always best. Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). Oracle, and a small number of related enterprise systems, really sit in a class by themselves. Ideally, they're installed on stand-alone, dedicated hardware, with the OS tweaked to the application's specification. Had an interesting discussion a few weeks back with a friend now working at PeopleSoft, tracing kernel issues through the application. For applications of this complexity, scope, and corporate profile, you pretty much _do_ knuckle down. Doesn't mean you can't play around the edges, or investigate alternatives. And for a wide class of applications (again: SAS in my experience), the so-called distro-specificity is pretty much a red herring. Though your support contract may call for it. In practice, the truth is that the Unix share of such ISV's operations is falling drastically. SAS now splits revenues between MF and 'Doze, with 'Nix a rapidly declining share (another reason I find it far less interesting these days). ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. Last time I installed Oracle, it was some gawdoffal Java-based GUI installation. Granted, 2000/2001. Is there an RPM yet? IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. It's not a hack, it's an alien ;-) Peace. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What Part of Gestalt don't you understand? Save Bob Edwards! http://www.savebobedwards.com/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said on Mon, 17 May 2004 22:37:44 -0700: dircha [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd venture to guess: We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest in it... So don't tollerate clueless vendors. Go find someone else. If you're going to spend money on software, why spend it on software that sucks? Because all software sucks. And if it doesn't the hardware sucks. And if *it* doesn't, then the firmware must surely suck. -- TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/ The prolonged application of polysyllabic vocabulary infallibly exercises a deleterious influence on the fecundity of expression, rendering the ultimate tendancy apocryphal. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Paul Johnson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tim Connors [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Because all software sucks. And if it doesn't the hardware sucks. And if *it* doesn't, then the firmware must surely suck. Debian. Because software doesn't have to suck. http://debian.org/ Sigh. woosh. http://www.faqs.org/docs/jargon/A/All-hardware-sucks-all-software-sucks.html -- TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/ Can you keep your witty comments shorter dude? I can't make that my sig! --Hipatia -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). I understand what you are saying. But they can install oracle and others today. My comment is that they want a vendor supported installation of the vendor application. Not an installation that a Debian expert made happen. Exactly. If you alien the RH package and try to install it on Debian it will install fine. Programs will work. But then eventually you will install a Debian package which requires not ncurses4 but libncurses4. The names won't match. If you try to install libncurses4 it will have file conflicts with ncurses4. If you try to remove ncurses4 first you will have dependencies problems. Anything built with ncurses4 installed won't know about libncurses4. Yes, this is all from personal experience. I created my own problems by not following the right policy. How do you propose to handle this type of case? Note that I am not disagreeing in principle to the fact that this would be beneficial. I agree with that. I am just asking how would this actually be done. I do not think it is possible. But I am very happy if I am proved wrong. IMHO, packages names and packages versions are only some kind of shrink-wrap for the distributed files. Dependency problems boil down to the fact that a file version x depends on a set of files of version x,y,z. So, the only common ground between distro are the files names and location and upstream version. So we must work on that. One way to solve the problem you mention is to fall back on checking the dependencies wrt the content of the packages (i.e the files). E.g: - foo.rpm requires libncurses4.rpm. - no libncurses4.deb is found - some rpm database (on disk or on-line ?) is queried for the content of libncurses4.rpm - some rules (to be defined ...) are applied to avoid requiring unnecessary files (like package doc ?) - Debian database is queried for missing files, ncurses4.deb and bar.deb (for the same of the example) contain these files - install ncurses4.deb and bar.deb - install foo.rpm The file dependency checking must be completely done by the tool. We can't ask people to interfere in this area, this is too complex. This approach raises some non-obvious problems: - the rpm database must refer to a well-known and maintained rpm repository with some consistent naming policy (Suse ?) - the files are installed in standard location independent of the distro (LSB compliance ?) - there must be a consistent way to identify the upstream version of each package (rpm or deb), lest version dependencies will not be satisfied [ I not sure that I have proved you wrong yet ... ;-) ] - Can tool like 'drpm' be reliable enough ? Look to 'alien' for the best track record we have so far for this type of tool. The answer is, Not yet. Alien does a decent conversion job. Except for the dependency part. Cheers -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Adam Funk [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome it's own shortcomings to stop sucking. Such as, 1) distro-dependent RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is. 2) Naming conventions. RPM isn't standardized. 3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2. 4) QA in RPM based distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and 3 and making headlines as it does. Aren't 1 and 2 caused largely by the fact that several different distros use and produce RPMs whereas (as far as I know) only Debian uses deb packages and people produce them specifically for Debian? (I'm not trying to stir up trouble: please correct me if I'm wrong.) I think that the main problem comes from the fact that several different distros use and produce RPMs without a common policy. The Debian policy is where Debian project is really brilliant. Thanks to all people involved for respecting it. Cheers -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Incoming from Adam Funk: use and produce RPMs whereas (as far as I know) only Debian uses deb packages and people produce them specifically for Debian? (I'm not That's arguable. There's Debian, and then there's Knoppix, Morphix, Libranet, Lindows, ... -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling - - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: Paul Johnson wrote: My understanding is this is a vocal minority decreasing in size as more good, free software comes out. You are thinking perhaps of of office productivity software? Proprietary software is sort of a band-aid for a real solution, or a toy for after work. A toy for after work, like a game? Hahaha! That is a good one. Anything proprietary is automatically a toy to me. Whether it clasically falls into the definition of a toy like Vice City does or a toy in the sense that Citrix Maincrash does, it doesn't matter. If it's proprietary, it's deliberately a toy like Vice City, or it's a toy by accident like Citrix Mainblame is. I hate Citrix with passion at this point. Yeah, Vice City automatically sucks because it's not GPL, but at least your job doesn't depend on Vice City working right. Check out these two prominant, non-oracle examples. Both high profile chip design software companies. And they don't come cheap. You won't see any prices there. Ever eat in a restaurant with no prices on the menu? It's kind'a like that. These are fairly representative of my corporate world. No prices on the menu? That's retarded. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgpb6ZSvhLxbO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Adam Funk [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tuesday 18 May 2004 07:00, Paul Johnson wrote: Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome it's own shortcomings to stop sucking. Such as, 1) distro-dependent RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is. 2) Naming conventions. RPM isn't standardized. 3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2. 4) QA in RPM based distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and 3 and making headlines as it does. Aren't 1 and 2 caused largely by the fact that several different distros use and produce RPMs whereas (as far as I know) only Debian uses deb packages and people produce them specifically for Debian? (I'm not trying to stir up trouble: please correct me if I'm wrong.) RPMs have been distro-specific since at least 1998, probably before that. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgp37xZ6mJets.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
s. keeling [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Incoming from Adam Funk: use and produce RPMs whereas (as far as I know) only Debian uses deb packages and people produce them specifically for Debian? (I'm not That's arguable. There's Debian, and then there's Knoppix, Morphix, Libranet, Lindows, ... And the vast majority of the time, using a Deb from one doesn't break anything in another. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lin You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgppQY717Xeei.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Paul Johnson wrote: Anything proprietary is automatically a toy to me. ...which is why your opinion is utterly worthless. I'm not asking anyone to like proprietary software or the corporate environment but at least know your enemy if nothing else. Mindless zealotry does more to harm successful advocacy than not mentioning Debian at all. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas [EMAIL PROTECTED] La Salle Debain - http://www.braincells.com/debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
On Mon, 17 May 2004, Dominique Dumont wrote: Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system, this would be a good message sent to the corporate world. I don't think so. The kind of corporate type who even know there is such a difference will understand why .debs are better. The ones who don't will never get the message. Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). Oracle is a bad example. Corporate DBAs pick whatever platform Oracle supports. Oracle will never support Debian not because there's no one there who knows how to make a .deb but because it is to chaotic for their tech support model. ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. Corporations do not ask for Debian because it is not on Oracles (or other ISVs) supported platform list. The operating system is just a commodity. It's the apps that drive the platform not the other way around. So the trick is to convince the ISVs that apps are worth porting to Debian. Once they are convinced, they'll work out how to make .debs fast enough. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. I disagree. IMO the number one thing we can do to drum up ISV support is to hurry up and release sarge. Woody is so out of date it's a maintainence nightmare. For example the latest stable versions of SUSE and Fedora are using perl 5.8.x. Woody still has 5.6. There are enough minor differences between the two to significantly complicate QA work. And lets not even talk about things like g++ or NPTL. Two, customers (as opposed to random zealots on mailing lists) need to be really vocal about wanting genuine Debian support. Everytime you get a survey, write about wanting Debian support. Everytime you meet a sales rep, ask him so hows the Debian support coming? When ISVs sense genuine demand, they will figure out how to fill it. Three, we need to increase the amount of documentation for developers and users. The more Debian is a known quantity, the easier it will be for ISVs to work with it and around it. So to sum up, don't worry about package format. It's really not important at all. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas [EMAIL PROTECTED] La Salle Debain - http://www.braincells.com/debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: and I found that it can't find files it need in deb DB,I had been tried to install it on debian, #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm the program will prompt: myproduct need perl 5.6, and the bash must be installed As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting the reverse. A native packaging is always best. Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system, this would be a good message sent to the corporate world. Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. The example above rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm would be perfect. The trick is that rpm need not to be the genuine rpm. It could be a program that would call alien, check the dependencies and then call dpkg. Or Debian could provide a 'drpm' that would do the same thing. The name is close enough to genuine rpm to give the feeling that yes, it's supported (it is also indeed a matter of subjective feeling) The major difficulty is: the installation must check the dependencies expressed in the rpm package by using the data stored in the Debian package database. Without a dependency check, installing a big product like Oracle will not be easy. So the questions are now: - does the Debian community want Debian to be used in corporate world to run *proprietary* softwares ? - Can tool like 'drpm' be reliable enough ? Cheers -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Dominique Dumont [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. What's wrong with, Make me a Debian package or lose a customer? -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgpfDz4eFWI6f.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
Paul Johnson wrote: Dominique Dumont [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. What's wrong with, Make me a Debian package or lose a customer? I'd venture to guess: We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest in it... dircha -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
Dominique Dumont wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting the reverse. A native packaging is always best. Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system, this would be a good message sent to the corporate world. Ian Murdock [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote the following a while back. I am very interested in how it turns out. http://lists.progeny.com/archive/discover-workers/200310/msg0.html Summary snippet: We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions (e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT. It is our hope that a distribution-independent Anaconda and a distribution-independent APT (plus, eventually, a distribution- independent configuration framework) will, along with a stronger LSB, help unify further the various Linux distributions. So there is hope for your goal. But it is not here yet. A problem to be handled will be different distro policies. Look at the recent issues just discussed about installing and maintaining KNOPPIX on a hard drive. A fine system. Based on Debian. But still there are issues about interoperating packages. If something that close can't work transparently how well can packages crossing really different distros operate? I am skeptical. But cautiously hopeful. Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). I understand what you are saying. But they can install oracle and others today. My comment is that they want a vendor supported installation of the vendor application. Not an installation that a Debian expert made happen. ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. We ask routinely. We get stone-walled routinely. But we do it anyway. However we have a lot of in house Debian expertise at my place of employment. Enough that vendor support was not the biggest lever. We do keep one RH machine (one vendor's supported platform, I am in the USA) so that when we need to bring a vendor in on a problem we recreate the problem there. Problems have always been identical in behavior on Debian systems too. But the vendor won't acknowledge it until we can get them a test case on their system. And by that I mean a system on the vendor's developer's machine. In the end I think we just need to wear down the folks supporting a particular distro instead of supporting GNU/Linux in general. And I am starting to see headway with our vendors. But it is slow going. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. I previously gave one example of the MTA differences between distros. But let's take something simple which might seem reasonable to alien install like ncurses4, /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4. A common compatibility library needed for many RH programs to run on Debian. Woody does not have this. I think potato did and it was dropped and is now back in sarge. If you alien the RH package and try to install it on Debian it will install fine. Programs will work. But then eventually you will install a Debian package which requires not ncurses4 but libncurses4. The names won't match. If you try to install libncurses4 it will have file conflicts with ncurses4. If you try to remove ncurses4 first you will have dependencies problems. Anything built with ncurses4 installed won't know about libncurses4. Yes, this is all from personal experience. I created my own problems by not following the right policy. How do you propose to handle this type of case? Note that I am not disagreeing in principle to the fact that this would be beneficial. I agree with that. I am just asking how would this actually be done. I do not think it is possible. But I am very happy if I am proved wrong. So the questions are now: - does the Debian community want Debian to be used in corporate world to run *proprietary* softwares ? Personally, yes. I think many people have that ideal. It is written into the Social Contract. But the recent Debian Social Contract vote casts that as a majority opinion into doubt. So now I don't know. A contingent of vocal DDs would certainly say no. - Can tool like
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world (was: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?)
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 04:10:39PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote: Dominique Dumont wrote: So the questions are now: - does the Debian community want Debian to be used in corporate world to run *proprietary* softwares ? Personally, yes. I think many people have that ideal. It is written into the Social Contract. But the recent Debian Social Contract vote casts that as a majority opinion into doubt. So now I don't know. A contingent of vocal DDs would certainly say no. I don't think the recent Social Contract vote affected that, really. The discussion has been almost entirely about what Debian should ship, not what our users should be able to do. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
dircha [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Paul Johnson wrote: Dominique Dumont [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). ISVs only provide their proprietary software as rpm because not many corporation ask for Debian. Corporation do not ask for Debian because most ISVs don't provide Debian packages. IMHO, the only way to break this circle is to provide a way to install rpm that doesn't look like a hack. What's wrong with, Make me a Debian package or lose a customer? I'd venture to guess: We're sorry, but we can not presently justify the costs of maintaining a Debian port. Perhaps if one of our larger customers express an interest in it... So don't tollerate clueless vendors. Go find someone else. If you're going to spend money on software, why spend it on software that sucks? -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgp49yGjc66Kk.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian, rpm and corporate world
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: Dominique Dumont wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Proulx) writes: #rpm -ivh myproduct-xxx-xx.rpm As other people have written doing this is not a good thing. Put yourself in the other position. I have a .deb file from Debian. I want to install it on a RH system. Should I insist that you must use dpkg to install it there? That would be just as silly as insisting the reverse. A native packaging is always best. Sure. Be if one can easily install rpm packages on a Debian system, this would be a good message sent to the corporate world. Ian Murdock [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote the following a while back. I am very interested in how it turns out. http://lists.progeny.com/archive/discover-workers/200310/msg0.html Summary snippet: We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions (e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT. Wow, Ian's being rather optimistic in thinking that RPM can overcome it's own shortcomings to stop sucking. Such as, 1) distro-dependent RPMs, RPM isn't standardized like Deb is. 2) Naming conventions. RPM isn't standardized. 3) Per-file dependencies need to be eliminated in RPM, it's a major contributor to problems 1 and 2. 4) QA in RPM based distros is apparently non-existent, contributing to problems 1, 2 and 3 and making headlines as it does. The clean fix would be to go back in time, kill the people who thought RPM was a good idea and make sure the Debian folks do what they did anyway, but we can't have everything. 8:o) Currently there is big chicken and egg problem with Debian in the corporate world. Corporate guys want to be able to install software from ISV (like Oracle). I understand what you are saying. But they can install oracle and others today. My comment is that they want a vendor supported installation of the vendor application. Not an installation that a Debian expert made happen. It's 2004. Linux is the second most common OS and Debian is the distro with the largest Linux market share from what I've been hearing lately. There is *ZERO* excuse for companies supporting Linux not to have .debs if they're distributing in binary form, they need to Debianize or hit the grave. If you alien the RH package and try to install it on Debian it will install fine. Programs will work. But then eventually you will install a Debian package which requires not ncurses4 but libncurses4. Number 2 and Number 4 from above apply. Personally, yes. I think many people have that ideal. It is written into the Social Contract. But the recent Debian Social Contract vote casts that as a majority opinion into doubt. So now I don't know. A contingent of vocal DDs would certainly say no. My understanding is this is a vocal minority decreasing in size as more good, free software comes out. Proprietary software is sort of a band-aid for a real solution, or a toy for after work. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux. You can find a worse OS, but it costs more. pgpnd0g5WzM0j.pgp Description: PGP signature
