Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Mario Filipe]

> makes sense...the more upstream developers, the more exposure debian gets
> lets face it...when you look around and see "Linux Software" the
> first name you see is RedHat and the first package format (not
> counting tarball) is RPM...
> And thats the kind of stuff that gives them real presense

I've been following this discussion and as such I decided to add my own
experience to it.

Last year i got my Computer Science degree. In the Univ. we used linux
(i think it was slackware). I used to say to my linux fanatic friends "linux
sucks! Windows is good!". I once had to install linux on my girlfriends
computer and i installed red hat. THe installation went ok for a windows
fanatic like me. To end the degree i had to make a large project. One of the
requesites that i was given was that i had to work with linux ("Oh no!" i
thought). During the first times i had lots and lots of hard fights with debian
and if it wasn't for this list i don't know what i would have done.

What does all this means. It means that IMHO the natural path for the
usesr is windows (until they get tyred of all the reboot's and start looking
elsewhere), then they find linux (and they with red-hat, Suse or Caldera, but
more red-hat) then they start to see the shortcomings (i for instance removed
some packages that i didn't need in my girlfriend's pc just to find out that
the whole system was lost! Didn't even  reboot)! And this is when they start
looking for sothing else and come to debian! Of course some people"die" during
the walk (windows fanatics and rh fanatics) but some survive to see the light.

See y'a

P.S : btw windows sucks. Debian is good!

Mario Filipe 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
->  http://neptuno.sc.uevora.pt/~mjnf | Agora bilingue (PT e EN)
->  Now bilingual (PT and EN)

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Paul]

Yup! Even to the technically inclined monitor and card setups
tend to be difficult and boring, even when you can find all the
information needed.

On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Aug 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> > What we need here is more clout with the hardware manufacturers.
> > Manufacturers actually providing X-servers that take advantange of
> > their hardware and/or the info for XF86Config. And monitor 
> > manufacturers could supply info for XF86Config. The linux community
> > is starting to get enough notice that this *may* be possible soon.
> > 
> 
> I would like to see an m4 configuration macro set like sendmail has for
> making X config files. I have no idea whay nobody has ever built one.
> 
> 
> George Bonser


/*** Running Debian Linux ***
*   For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,  *
*   that whoever believes in Him should not perish...John 3:16  *
* W. Paul Mills  *  Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.  *
* EMAIL= [EMAIL PROTECTED]  *  WWW= http://Mills-USA.com/  *
* Bill, I was there several years ago, why would I want to go back? *
/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> I agree. If I am speaking nonsense, just tell me what part of
 George> my idea is nonsense and why rather than a blanket statement
 George> along the lines of "The thoughts of the user community are of
 George> no importance to us" which is the message I heard.

I was not going to respond to this thread any more (I really
 fail to find your arguments convincing), but this gross
 mischaracterization is something I have to correct.

I assume you were referring to my posts, though you were too
 polite to say so. 

I never said (nor did anyone on thisd mailing list) that "The
 thoughts of the user community are of no importance to us". 

I do refute that "Since the users are the ones you all are
 doing this for, you are working for the users, by gar, and what they
 say is of over riding and paramont importance, and do what they say
 or else"

Yes, I exagerate. But no more than the user-unfreindly spin
 that peole have been putting on my statements.



 George> That hurts as a user and leaves one feeling that they can not
 George> contribute the results of their life experiance which may be
 George> quite a bit more varied than a 20yo developer.

Whatever gave you the idea that anyone is saying that
 non-developers can not or do not contribute? Bug reports, and request
 for enhancements, and feedback on user interface issues are
 important. The community which I write things for is larger than
 those who write code. 

However, remember that the people who work on free software
 projects may not share your views, and indeed, may have different
 agendas from your own. 

s far as the version numbering scheme goes: Major versions
 imply a significant (major) change in the distribution; in the past,
 a.out-->elf and libc5-->glibc have been considered major changes that
 warrant a major number increase. Whetner a change is "Major" or not
 is subjective; and indeed, so far, the changes that have qualified
 have been one time changes and unlikely to create a rule set from.

There is an unspoken implication that there may be release
 boundary incompatibilites at a major number change; you may need to
 upgrade a significant number of packages on the system; and, in the
 past, that may mean that you can't mix and match packages between
 different releases; in the future, we shall do our darndest that such
 upheavals are prevented.

Minor changes just cause the minor number of the release to be
 bumped up; and the changes in the system are minor; in the past, that
 has meant you can have a hyubrid system; in the future, we shall try
 extend this around major version changes too.

The version numbers are determined based on an subjective and
 empirical measure of the changes involved, as determined by the
 developers; and not on pilitical motives like "that makes our version
 number higher than anyones".

I still reject the idea that we should change major versions
 faster to increase our market share. I do not want to achieve market
 share that way. The same reason applies to the number assigned to
 slink: I would assign the number based on how different slink was,
 (and that depends on how much of the transition to the FHS, and the
 new way of doing releases, and the restructuring of the Archive gets
 done), rather than how well CD manufacturers can market the upcoming
 Slink. 

If forced, I shall ask the version number to be bumped up to a
 billion or so to fix this marketing problem once and for all. 

So pardon me for putting technical reasons ahead of marketing
 ones, and maybe this shall be the death of Debian if the project does
 it this way.  But making decisions based on marketting rather than on
 technical merit is as likely to kill Debian as anything else.

As Debian has always averred, anyone can use Debian as a base
 for their own distribution, of this attitude offends or displeases
 anyone. And the version number of that distribution can be set to
 whatever the distributors like. (Is this being too offensive and
 confrontational? -- In the free software community that I matured in,
 if one did not like the current way, one created the method that
 worked better. But that is a dying philosophy, and doubtelless I
 shall be villified for bein harsh and selfish and unreasonable. So be
 it) 

manoj
-- 
 Let them obey that know not how to rule.  -- Shakespeare
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Martin Bialasinski]

>> "SJC" == Stephen J Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

SJC> makes sense...the more upstream developers, the more exposure debian gets
SJC> lets face it...when you look around and see "Linux Software" the
SJC> first name you see is RedHat and the first package format (not
SJC> counting tarball) is RPM...
SJC> And thats the kind of stuff that gives them real presense

Many programms also have Debian versions, but there are simply not
mentioned on the homepages. Maybe the author doesn't know this, maybe
he just didn't care to update his page.

How about asking the upstream authors to place a link to the Debian
version (better only to the directory)
ftp.debian.org/debian/unstable/main/admin for example. Maybe also a
link to stable.

How about a announcement to freshmeat when a programm is newly
packaged for Debian?

Maybe this should be discussed further in -devel or -publicity.

SJC> Now that I have read this I think I will have HIM do the install
SJC> with as little coaching from me as possible, then will write down
SJC> all his trouble spots, and how I explained it to him.

SJC> If anyone is interested I think it could be a great help in where
SJC> we need to improve.

Good idea. Please do so. Maybe I wil have a chance do do so as well
soon.

Ciao,
Martin


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Paul]

On 5 Aug 1998, Martin Bialasinski wrote:

> 
> OTOH, three friends of mine wanted to try Linux. I gave them Debian
> and saw, that it *is* too complicated for the average Windoze user to
> set up. X setup is a pain in the ass and we know it. Still one of them
> wants to learn it, and I believe he will be satisfied with Debian. The
> others will get it as well (I hope).

What we need here is more clout with the hardware manufacturers.
Manufacturers actually providing X-servers that take advantange of
their hardware and/or the info for XF86Config. And monitor 
manufacturers could supply info for XF86Config. The linux community
is starting to get enough notice that this *may* be possible soon.


/*** Running Debian Linux ***
*   For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,  *
*   that whoever believes in Him should not perish...John 3:16  *
* W. Paul Mills  *  Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.  *
* EMAIL= [EMAIL PROTECTED]  *  WWW= http://Mills-USA.com/  *
* Bill, I was there several years ago, why would I want to go back? *
/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Stephen J. Carpenter]

On Wed, Aug 05, 1998 at 12:25:40PM +0200, Martin Bialasinski wrote:
> 
> >> "GB" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> GB> Debian is, quite frankly, too small to dictate to the rest of the linux
> GB> community how things should be done. On the other hand, it is too good for
> GB> the other distributions to ignore.I think they all secretly desire to be
> GB> as well integrated as Debian and in that respect they have to listen when
> GB> Debian makes suggestions.
> 
> Someone said (in -devel, IIRC), that Debian won't get more weight by
> having more "users", but by attracting more upstream developers.

makes sense...the more upstream developers, the more exposure debian gets
lets face it...when you look around and see "Linux Software" the
first name you see is RedHat and the first package format (not
counting tarball) is RPM...
And thats the kind of stuff that gives them real presense

> OTOH, three friends of mine wanted to try Linux. I gave them Debian
> and saw, that it *is* too complicated for the average Windoze user to
> set up. X setup is a pain in the ass and we know it. Still one of them
> wants to learn it, and I believe he will be satisfied with Debian. The
> others will get it as well (I hope).

I agreeas a very technical user myself I find debian setup almost
"too easy" (right up till dselect...but...thats bein worked on ;) )
I am soon installing debian on a friends machine.
He is a "Worst than Average" windows user (I am only giving
him linux cuz he needs a network connection in his dorm room and doesn't
have all the needed files for his current OS (win 3.1)..and hes ona  486)

Now that I have read this I think I will have HIM do the install with
as little coaching from me as possible, then will write down all his trouble
spots, and how I explained it to him.

If anyone is interested I think it could be a great help in where we need to
improve.
 
-Steve

-- 
/* -- Stephen Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
*/
E-mail "Bumper Stickers":
"A FREE America or a Drug-Free America: You can't have both!"
"honk if you Love Linux"


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Market Debian? (was Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?)

[Martin Bialasinski]

>> "GB" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

GB> On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, George R wrote:

GB> locations every time it is run. Even if you run it Red Hat's UUCP package
GB> through alien, it will continue to look in /usr/lib/uucp for its configs
GB> rather than the proper /etc/uucp directory. The bad thing is that it ( the
GB> Red Hat package) does not even create the /usr/lib/uucp directory or make
GB> any skeleton config files so the first time you run it, it will crash and
GB> you will not even know why until you run strace on it. 

So what? If the rpm behaves like this, it is broken with regard to
debian quality standards.I haven't used alien a single time. Debian
has more packages than any other distribution. You will hardly find
any standard package that isn't available as a debian package.

As I said in another thread: I am often surprised to find out, that a
programm is already packaged for debian.

If there is some new programm, I install it in /usr/local using stow
for maintainance. If it is a nice package, introduce it in -devel and
ask whether someone can package it.

If we like it, we will package it. And you can become a developer as
well. There are cool helper apps available to make this easy. Believe
me, I don't do any C/C++ and still maintain C/C++ programms. 

Ciao,
Martin


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Martin Bialasinski]

>> "GB" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

GB> Debian is, quite frankly, too small to dictate to the rest of the linux
GB> community how things should be done. On the other hand, it is too good for
GB> the other distributions to ignore.I think they all secretly desire to be
GB> as well integrated as Debian and in that respect they have to listen when
GB> Debian makes suggestions.

Someone said (in -devel, IIRC), that Debian won't get more weight by
having more "users", but by attracting more upstream developers.

And there is something about this.

OTOH, three friends of mine wanted to try Linux. I gave them Debian
and saw, that it *is* too complicated for the average Windoze user to
set up. X setup is a pain in the ass and we know it. Still one of them
wants to learn it, and I believe he will be satisfied with Debian. The
others will get it as well (I hope).

Debian is technically superior and I am proud about this. One of my
friends had installed SUSE. I checked the thing out. Inconsitency all
over the place. A pain to manage over a dialup/telnet connection (I
will have to help him with the box, so I need good access). I dropped
it.

Ciao,
Martin


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Tyson Dowd]

On 04-Aug-1998, Nathan E Norman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:
> : 
> : That is the point that I create a slightly modified subset of Debian that
> : does conform to the standard and sell the sucker for $100 a pop to
> : businesses needing a better Linux than Red Hat. 
> 
> Ok, but why is it Debian's job to develop this derivative work?  I am
> amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian yet - it
> is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, and I've
> played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to mention OS/2,
> Novell, Win95/NT)

I agree with you here.  It would be a silly thing for Debian to do,
they simply don't have the right structure to do this.  I have been
toying with the idea doing something like this, but it would be a
separate (but releated) project.

The best way to get Debian as a commercial product is to make it one.
This is the power of free software -- you can do that.  Many of the
developers are not interested in marketing or selling or

-- 
   Tyson Dowd   # "Bill Gates is a white persian cat and a monocle
# away from becoming another James Bond villan."
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]# "No Mr Bond, I expect you to upgrade."
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~trd #-- Dennis Miller and Terri Branch


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

RE: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[George R]

On 08/04/98 at 08:49 PM, George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>Debian has things like pre-depends that Red Hat lacks the last time I
>looked. Also, Debian tends to "do the right thing" more often with
>regard to such things that should got into /etc or /usr/X11R6/lib where
>Red Hat and other still put them in /usr/lib. Debian is actually the
>correct way but sometimes seems unwilling to compromise over the short
>term for the sake of compatability over the long term.


This looks like you are saying Debian follows the unix standard way of
doing things and the other verisons don't.  So, why change from the
correct way to a wrong way?  Doesn't the wrong way make porting from
Unix to Red Had harder than Unix to Debian?  If for know other reason
than it makes the developer learn two (2) file structures.

BTW, thanks for the illustrated differances between RH and Debian file
structure.  I thought I was remembering file locations wrong when I
tried RH; file locations made no sense to me at all.

I may have a twisted mind, but my old DOS drives had a structure very
similar to Debian.  Then again, anything is better than a registry!

George R


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Market Debian? (was Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?)

[George R]

On 08/04/98 at 05:34 PM, Mark Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>Technical excellence is about doing something well, and coming up with
>a system which is highly capable.  One measure of capability is how
>much software runs on the system.  If RedHat runs a greater variety of
>commercial applications than Debian, then in that sense RedHat is
>technically superior to Debian (even though in other senses it may be
>inferior).  I think Debian should strive for technical excellence in
>every sense, and part of this requires that we take marketing
>considerations seriously.

Figured I'd at least try and make the subject close to topic.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and someone will), but one of the reasons I
thought Debian to be technically superior to RH and co was the ability
to use RPMs in addition to deb packages.  IOW, it can use any package RH
can; just install alien then the package.


George


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Ed Cogburn]

Young, Ed wrote:
> 
> I may be out to lunch on the following but I believe we're zeroing in on
> something anyway. That's what lists are all about, right?
> 
> One thing I've gotten out of the thread is that RH and SUSE, (etc) are not
> adhering to standards but have the market share. Therefore comercial apps
> provide distributions of their software for those Linux distributions. Since
> Debian does not follow RH or SUSE, it does not follow the "standard" set by
> those dists, and therefore there's something of a deviation between us and
> them.


No, RH appears to be trying to follow the standards, such as they
exist, and so is Debian.  The problem has more to do with the existing
file system standard (and others) not being enough to solve some
fundamental problems that still exist.  The simple (for me) response is
to say to go to http://forum.freshmeat.net/threads/lsb/ and read some of
these editorials about LSB and why its needed.


> My questions are:
> How is debian different w/r/t RH/SUSE?
> 
> Is this difference fundamental (filestructure diffs? ) or simpley different
> packaging schemes. (maybe not "simply")


There are (or have been in the past) some problems with file system
structures, like /etc/init.d, or maybe the entire /etc tree.  I don't
have an RH system to check, but based on comments in the above
editorials, /etc should be a good example of a place to find differences
between dists.
You are right though, the fundamental difference is the package
manager, and yes, its not just "simply".  The deb system is technically
superior to rpm (IMHO) and a number of us Debian users aren't keen on
the idea of being forced to use the existing rpm system.  Now if it was
upgraded to work as well as deb, perhaps a hybrid of the two systems,
then . . .


> Like the Netscape package installer, can't other commercial apps be
> installed on a debian system?
 

Sure, progs that can be installed to somehwhere in usr/local and don't
mess (or need to mess) with other parts of the system work just fine. 
Netscape proves that it is possible even now, with a little work.  The
idea is to make it easy for newbies to do things like installing NS, and
for software vendors to know that they have only to package their
product in a common accepted format, and adhere to a minimal set of
rules about the assumptions the software can make about the rest of the
system, to reach virtually everyone who is running Linux.


>
> [massive snip]
>


--
Ed C.


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Paul]

On 3 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

>   Well, the minute Red Hat changes their version numbers and
>  starts following the Linux File system standards, we shall all be in
>  sync.
> 
>   At the moment, moving to the new Linux File Heirarchy Stnadard
>  (FHS) is way more important than doing whatever the myriad different
>  distributions are doing. Standards. We follow them.
> 
>   manoj

This is one of the thing that has kept me using debian. A predictable
file system layout. Other distribution I first used, when you needed
to tweak something, you never knew where to look. Always spent a lot
of time looking throught documents and general hunting around. Most
of the time with debian, it does not take long to find what you need.

/*** Running Debian Linux ***
*   For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,  *
*   that whoever believes in Him should not perish...John 3:16  *
* W. Paul Mills  *  Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.  *
* EMAIL= [EMAIL PROTECTED]  *  WWW= http://Mills-USA.com/  *
* Bill, I was there several years ago, why would I want to go back? *
/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

RE: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Young, Ed]

I may be out to lunch on the following but I believe we're zeroing in on
something anyway. That's what lists are all about, right? 

One thing I've gotten out of the thread is that RH and SUSE, (etc) are not
adhering to standards but have the market share. Therefore comercial apps
provide distributions of their software for those Linux distributions. Since
Debian does not follow RH or SUSE, it does not follow the "standard" set by
those dists, and therefore there's something of a deviation between us and
them. 

My questions are: 
How is debian different w/r/t RH/SUSE? 

Is this difference fundamental (filestructure diffs? ) or simpley different
packaging schemes. (maybe not "simply")

Like the Netscape package installer, can't other commercial apps be
installed on a debian system? 

Ed


> -Original Message-
> From: jason and jill [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 1998 10:16 AM
> To:   debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Subject:  Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?
> 
> > : > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny
> thing,
> > : > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and
> read
> > : > about various OSs. 
> > : 
> > : Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think
> I
> > : have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.
> 
> I think one of the problems here is that nobody can figure out what
> George's point is since he hasn't stated it very succinctly--personally, I
> can't figure what George's point is.
> 
> Is it:
> 
> 1) Debian doesn't change its version number often enough.
> 
> To which the response has been that Debian changes its version number when
> a major update is done to the distribution and that Debian does not
> advance the version number for changes that amount to patches and
> bugfixes.  Personally, I prefer that to other distributions that, for
> marketing reasons, advance their version number with each bugfix.  
> 
> As far as people being able to compare Linux distributions to tell which
> is more up-to-date, right now there is no LSB standard set so there is, at
> this point, nothing to argue about.
> 
> As far as George's fellow employees, what can I say?  Before I got a Linux
> distribution to install I checked to see what the different distributions
> were, looked at some pros and cons, and made a choice.  I'm not a computer
> professional; I'm an attorney.  As far as I'm concerned, a computer
> professional going out and buying an operating system with not even thirty
> minutes of research and basing the decision on the software package's
> blurb is about on the same level as my signing a contract without reading
> it b/c "All that legal stuff is what I do at work, I can't bother with it
> at home."  Not that there isn't justifiable confusion--Linux the kernal is
> one thing and has its numbering, each distribution is something different
> and has it's own numbering.  Not that difficult a concept to understand. 
> What George's friends did is a bit like someone buying a recording of
> Mozart's Jupiter symphony based on the length of the recording, figuring
> that the longer recording has more music. In the example I just gave there
> isn't much you can do besides explain; at this point, same with Linux
> distributions.  If someone isn't willing to listen or find out, there
> isn't much we can do about it in the absence of a standard, except engage
> in competitive version number inflation or stick to users willing to put a
> modicum of effort into choosing their operating system.
> 
> Possible George point number 2:
> 
> Debian re: standards.
> 
> This is the alleged "point" where George has stepped in ka-ka, mainly due
> to posts that are long on verbiage and short on making an exact point.
> 
> So far I have detected attempts at:
> 
> a) Debian should follow standards.
> 
> To which the response has been:  Debian does, and will keep doing.
> 
> So where's the frickin' argument?
> 
> Possibly b/c George has morphed to:
> 
> b) Debian ignores or will ignore standards, and shouldn't.
> 
> To which the response has been: Debian doesn't, and won't.
> 
> So where's the frickin' argument?
> 
> Possibly b/c George has morphed to:
> 
> c) Debian is going to be nonstandard, cutting it off from all commercial
> applications, making the distribution useless.
> 
> To which the reponse is, see a) and b) above.  Debian is being developed
> along existing standards, will be developed to meet future st

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Ed Cogburn]

Nathan E Norman wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:
> 
> : On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George R wrote:
> :
> : > I'm neither a sysadmin nor a kernel programmer, I'm not even a unix
> : > user, I'm just a guy that wanted something stable that was still
> : > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny thing,
> : > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
> : > about various OSs.
> :
> : Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think I
> : have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.
> 
> Perhaps not everyone agrees with you?
> 
> : Debian can be a really great technical OS but if I can not install a
> : particular commercial application and the vendor says "We do not support
> : Debian because they are non-standard"  then debian goes out the door if
> : the project depends on the application.
> 
> In what ways is Debian non-standard?  We have the FSSTND, and soon FHS.
> Any vendor can install into /usr/local (and soon /opt) on a Debian
> system with the guarantee that we won't munge their stuff!  How many
> other Linux distros can say that?


Its going to take more than declaring /usr/local off limits to solve
the problem of inter-distribution operability.  There's the problems
with shared libs (versions/locations), and different package management
systems.  And no, 'alien' is not a safe and complete solution (subtle
errors can still happen); this is pointed out in the LSB forum on
freshmeat.  These are the problems that LSB appears to be aimed at.  I
just hope that the LSB 'process' doesn't end up trying to ram RPM down
everyone's throat.


> : I will try to go back to the original point by saying that with some sort
> : of a standard base, and if Debian were to take part in it, I could rest
> : assured that the application WILL run on Debian. If Debian ignores the
> : standard and other sign onto it, Debian dies. End of story.
> 
> You seem to argue this point over and over, yet no-one Debian has
> advocated NOT following standards.  I did see some people who saw no
> reason to bump up our version number to "catch-up" with RedHat.


I'll agree here.  LSB is still in an 'alpha' state (at best), so there
shouldn't be a reason for all of us getting so worked up over this
issue, here and now.  :-)


>
> [snip for brevity] 
>


-- 
Ed


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[jason and jill]

> : > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny thing,
> : > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
> : > about various OSs. 
> : 
> : Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think I
> : have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.

I think one of the problems here is that nobody can figure out what
George's point is since he hasn't stated it very succinctly--personally, I
can't figure what George's point is.

Is it:

1) Debian doesn't change its version number often enough.

To which the response has been that Debian changes its version number when
a major update is done to the distribution and that Debian does not
advance the version number for changes that amount to patches and
bugfixes.  Personally, I prefer that to other distributions that, for
marketing reasons, advance their version number with each bugfix.  

As far as people being able to compare Linux distributions to tell which
is more up-to-date, right now there is no LSB standard set so there is, at
this point, nothing to argue about.

As far as George's fellow employees, what can I say?  Before I got a Linux
distribution to install I checked to see what the different distributions
were, looked at some pros and cons, and made a choice.  I'm not a computer
professional; I'm an attorney.  As far as I'm concerned, a computer
professional going out and buying an operating system with not even thirty
minutes of research and basing the decision on the software package's
blurb is about on the same level as my signing a contract without reading
it b/c "All that legal stuff is what I do at work, I can't bother with it
at home."  Not that there isn't justifiable confusion--Linux the kernal is
one thing and has its numbering, each distribution is something different
and has it's own numbering.  Not that difficult a concept to understand. 
What George's friends did is a bit like someone buying a recording of
Mozart's Jupiter symphony based on the length of the recording, figuring
that the longer recording has more music. In the example I just gave there
isn't much you can do besides explain; at this point, same with Linux
distributions.  If someone isn't willing to listen or find out, there
isn't much we can do about it in the absence of a standard, except engage
in competitive version number inflation or stick to users willing to put a
modicum of effort into choosing their operating system.

Possible George point number 2:

Debian re: standards.

This is the alleged "point" where George has stepped in ka-ka, mainly due
to posts that are long on verbiage and short on making an exact point.

So far I have detected attempts at:

a) Debian should follow standards.

To which the response has been:  Debian does, and will keep doing.

So where's the frickin' argument?

Possibly b/c George has morphed to:

b) Debian ignores or will ignore standards, and shouldn't.

To which the response has been: Debian doesn't, and won't.

So where's the frickin' argument?

Possibly b/c George has morphed to:

c) Debian is going to be nonstandard, cutting it off from all commercial
applications, making the distribution useless.

To which the reponse is, see a) and b) above.  Debian is being developed
along existing standards, will be developed to meet future standards, so
commercial applications made to install on a distribution following
standards will install on Debian.

So, again, I gotta ask, where's the frickin' argument?

Near as I can see, the argument has been about arguing, with no real
point.

> : I will try to go back to the original point by saying that with some sort
> : of a standard base, and if Debian were to take part in it, I could rest
> : assured that the application WILL run on Debian. If Debian ignores the
> : standard and other sign onto it, Debian dies. End of story.

See, this is the kind of thing that keeps things going.  Who the hell has
mentioned Debian not following standards, other than George?  Unless a
standard is completely brain-dead or is based on some commercial
distribution's proprietary software, I haven't seen anything from any of
the Debian developers here that would suggest Debian will ignore those
standards. 

George, stop skewering your own damned strawman.  

> : will decide what is best for you (the second time I have use those words
> : on this list in the last year).

Well, then, you need to get over this persecution complex. :)

> : Office and other products are coming down the pike that will push debian
> : into the workplace and possibly prevent people from having Debian at home
> : because of software support issues if the basic standards are not met.

Again, who the hell is talking about Debian being developed to be
nonstandard, other than George?  Who?  Manoj, in all his "screw the
lusers" posts, has nonetheless not suggested that Debian abandon or ignore
standards.  

> : That is the point that I create a slightly modified subset of Debian that

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Thalia L. Hooker]

Netiquette aside, I agree with most of Mark's comments; 
especially his points about contininuing to strive for technical 
excellence, but putting a higher priority on marketing.

> Technical excellence is about doing something well, and coming up with a
> system which is highly capable.  One measure of capability is how much
> software runs on the system.  If RedHat runs a greater variety of
> commercial applications than Debian, then in that sense RedHat is
> technically superior to Debian (even though in other senses it may be
> inferior).  I think Debian should strive for technical excellence in every
> sense, and part of this requires that we take marketing considerations
> seriously.

Thalia


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Nathan E Norman]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

: On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George R wrote:
: 
: > I'm neither a sysadmin nor a kernel programmer, I'm not even a unix
: > user, I'm just a guy that wanted something stable that was still
: > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny thing,
: > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
: > about various OSs. 
: 
: Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think I
: have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.

Perhaps not everyone agrees with you?

: Debian can be a really great technical OS but if I can not install a
: particular commercial application and the vendor says "We do not support
: Debian because they are non-standard"  then debian goes out the door if
: the project depends on the application.

In what ways is Debian non-standard?  We have the FSSTND, and soon FHS.
Any vendor can install into /usr/local (and soon /opt) on a Debian
system with the guarantee that we won't munge their stuff!  How many
other Linux distros can say that?

: I will try to go back to the original point by saying that with some sort
: of a standard base, and if Debian were to take part in it, I could rest
: assured that the application WILL run on Debian. If Debian ignores the
: standard and other sign onto it, Debian dies. End of story.

You seem to argue this point over and over, yet no-one Debian has
advocated NOT following standards.  I did see some people who saw no
reason to bump up our version number to "catch-up" with RedHat.

: Also, I have read comments here today from people that have no idea what
: free software is. They think it means non-commercial. They think it means
: free in the financial sense. All it means is that you get the source code
: when you get the binaries and you are free to modify and distribute the
: source. 

Well, for Debian it means a bit more than that, but I'm sure you've
read all about it :)

: I am really ashamed at some of the comments I see here from people. I
: started out by saying that Debian should have a clearer policy for
: determining versions and then noted that the LSB (if you don't know what
: it is, search Freshmeat) would take care of the concerns I had and then I
: get this load of attitude about screw the users, the Central Committee
: will decide what is best for you (the second time I have use those words
: on this list in the last year).

I think you are impatient, as the LSB does not yet exist, at least in a
corporeal form.  So please excuse the audience if they don't trip over
themselves in a rush to embrace your proposal ... I think the Linux
community is cautious of anything that smells like vapour-ware.

I believe the LSB could be very useful - I hope it will be.  But arguing
about if, when, and how Debian should utilise the LSB is a bit
premature, don't you think?

: People have to understand that it is the commercial applications that will
: make Linux. Is Mozilla free ... yes. Is Netscape COmmunicator? No. Mozilla
: is like a reference standard implementation. Netscape might be BASED on
: Mozilla but you will not see the source code for Navigator-4.5.
: 
: I am willing to pay for good software that works, I am not willing to pay
: for software that sucks and I am not willing to put up with crappy
: software just because it is free. I use Debian because it is the best
: distribution of Linux and it provides me with what I need right now. 

Well, you could be right.  For me, and I'd guess a few others that are
more interested in the server-side of Linux, Debian is more than
adequate.  (It's fantastic, actually).

On the other hand, machines such as laptops are often more suited for a
"commercial" distribution, due to fun things like the Neomagic (or
whatever it is) chip-set.  I'm getting a new laptop this fall - I may try
Debian, or I may install RedHat or SuSE or Caldera.  Is that so bad?  I
doubt the rest of the Debian community will ostracise me for that :)

: The one main thing that debian has going for it is dselect and apt. The
: second thing is the integration and testing. These are good. Even with
: these things, if commercial applications can not be integrated easilly, it
: is a curiosity. More so in a couple of years than now. Things like Corel
: Office and other products are coming down the pike that will push debian
: into the workplace and possibly prevent people from having Debian at home
: because of software support issues if the basic standards are not met.
: 
: That is the point that I create a slightly modified subset of Debian that
: does conform to the standard and sell the sucker for $100 a pop to
: businesses needing a better Linux than Red Hat. 

Ok, but why is it Debian's job to develop this derivative work?  I am
amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian yet - it
is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, and I've
played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to mention OS/2,

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Brandon Mitchell]

[back to the original thread]

http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-announce-98/msg00015.html

[now to the version number thread]

George, you never replied to:
http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-user-9808/msg00242.html
Did I miss the point again?

[now to the new user hostility thread]
These views are of individual developers, not all of them.  In general,
debian welcomes new users.  Please remember that debian may not be the
perfect solution for everyone, so thinking that one person has done a bad
thing by installing red hat is just as bad as thinking my parents have
done a bad thing by installing ms.  (By a bad thing I mean installing the
os that isn't right for them.)  Typically the developers respond
negatively toward the view that they aren't doing enough.  They are doing
an amazing ammount of work, and I should be thanking them every time I
turn on my monitor (no need to turn on the computer, it's always on).  

Brandon

--+--
Brandon Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Debian Testing Group Status
PGP Key:   finger -l [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  http://bhmit1.home.ml.org/deb/
Dijkstra probably hates me (Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c)


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Gary L. Hennigan]

Mark Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
| Hmm.  I started this thread, but it moved to a different topic very
| quickly!  Getting back to the original point: there have been a couple of
| responses from people who have said that they did see the release of 
| Debian 2.0 on Linux Announce, yet I don't think I ever received it ---
| I am subscribed to [EMAIL PROTECTED]  And there
| was a reply from one other person who didn't see it.  I wonder whether the
| announcement made it to the actual news group, but not to the mailing
| list?  On the other hand, perhaps I just missed it (but I don't think so
| because I was looking out for it).
[snip]

Well, I don't subscribe to the mailing list. But, like I said, it was
definately posted to the newsgroup. In fact it hasn't even expired
from our news server. Here's the announcment:

From: Ben Gertzfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 Released!
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 13:03:49 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
Path: 
fugu!lynx.unm.edu!newshub.tc.umn.edu!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.algonet.se!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!newsfeed1.funet.fi!128.214.205.17.MISMATCH!news.helsinki.fi!not-for-mail
Lines: 129
Approved: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mikko Rauhala)
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: laulujoutsen.pc.helsinki.fi
Old-Date: 23 Jul 1998 20:52:26 -0700
X-No-Archive: yes
X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP comp.os.linux.announce
iQCVAgUBNbx6tVrUI/eHXJZ5AQGDrAP/Wlfb8vp1oT/jDpyTJS06RUXIfOgt3Fax
xy2NMEUFrblO44TqFuwVk8GLsWm62EIhbe3slgAsUuHobh46PpLmuVXW9D4/y7dk
xwefC8czVtkXPs7JUy7tETGb3trRsBql6QN7Ro2x0xVb7mD92GI8Hv69Gw/1k3Ar
mv+BAWyVkWc=
=BVQ5
Xref: fugu comp.os.linux.announce:3044

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-


 
 Debian GNU/Linux
 http://www.debian.org/
 Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 'Hamm' Released
 July 24, 1998
 

>> News

Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 'Hamm' has officially been released for the i386 
and m68k architectures.

It can be obtained in several ways:

FTP:   ftp://ftp.debian.org/pub/debian/  
CD-ROM:http://www.debian.org/distrib/vendors (list of distributors)
CD Images: http://cdimage.debian.org/

Debian 2.0 contains over 1500 precompiled binary packages contributed 
from over 400 developers, including all of the favorites: web servers, 
GIMP, gcc, egcs, XFree86, SQL servers and many other tools and utilities.
It also marks the move from the older libc5 to the newer libc6.

Debian's powerful package manager 'dpkg' allows for easy installation, 
maintenance and updating of packages including sophisticated handling of
dependencies and configurations.  Packages from other distributions can 
easily be installed using the 'alien' utility.

Debian development distributions for Alpha, Sparc, and PowerPC are also 
available under the 'unstable' tree from the FTP site.  They will likely
be released with Debian 2.1 'Slink.'  Development is currently in 
progress for UltraSparc, Netwinder and Hurd based distributions.


>> Why Debian GNU/Linux?

 o Debian is 100% Free Software. Our goal is to help keep Linux free.
 o Over 1500 precompiled software packages.
 o Over 400 developers, the largest staff of any Linux distribution.
 o The largest pre-release testing program in the Linux world.
 o Free on-line support from our large, friendly user community on the
   debian-user mailing list and interactive chat forums.
 o Floppy-less install directly from CD, or single floppy install
   using NFS or hard disk.
 o Automatic upgrades via CD, FTP, NFS, or disk.
 o Bug tracking system is publicly accessible on our web server, and
   users are encouraged to access the system and provide feedback.
 o Anyone can duplicate and sell our Official CD or a snapshot of the
   FTP archive, at no charge!
 o Compatible with RPM and Slackware packages.


>> Upgrade Information

To avoid problems in just upgrading packages via dpkg, dselect, or dftp 
(due to possible libc5/libc6 conflicts), a specific upgrade procedure is 
recommended.  This document describing this procedure can be found at:

http://www.debian.org/2.0/HOWTO.upgrade

There are several ways to upgrade from an earlier version:
  1) autoup.sh
   This is a script that will upgrade the programs in the
 correct order, and even download the deb's for you.  Because
 of the continuing changes to the archive, a tar archive of the
 packages that were available at the time autoup.sh was last
 released is provided.  This is in the developers corner
 of the Debian web site, but newer versions are at:
http://www.debian.org/2.0/autoup/
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/hamm/hamm/upgrade-i386/
http://www.uk.debian.org/autoup/
http://debian.vicnet.net.au/autoup/
http://www.taz.net.au/autoup/
  2

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[M.C. Vernon]

Dear all,



> Forgetting the version numbers matter (that was showed to be somehow silly
> after George remembered LSB in his *second* posting), what I really could not
> understand and neither expect was the hostility to newbies.
> 
> Oh, yes, I agree with that community staff. This is one of the major issues in
> Linux that atract me. But shouldn't we be a community open to the others?
> Shouldn't we initiate people into "light" of open software? Surely lots of
> people that don't "contribute to community" may start after a while. Maybe,
> like me, they won't be developers (some surely will), but they can share their
> knowledge with freasher newbies, they can say: hey, you have a choise, you're
> not supposed to use this or that OS, you don't have to fight againt, but you
> may fight with.

I agree entirely. As an absolute newbie it was hard to get started with
Debian; fortunatly friends at College and this list helped me get started.
Unfortunatly some of the responses I have seen on this list to
obvious/silly problems have been somewhat flamelike. We should _all_
remember that some people out there do not have the experience nor the
expertese that we do: what might seem a trivial or stupid mistake to us
might seem impossibly difficult to a newbie. Yes, in some cases a need to
RTFM should be expressed, but gently, and with the answer to the problem
as well: "You need to do this, but RTM as well to understand why".
 
Yours,


Matthew 

-- 
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

Steward of the Cambridge Tolkien Society
Selwyn College Computer Support
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/8841/
http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/tolkien/
http://pick.sel.cam.ac.uk/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Paulo J. da Silva e Silva]

 >  The responses to George's suggestion were . . . interesting.  I wonder
  
 > if the majority of developers share this hostility towards new users. 
^^^
 > It would certainly have a sobering effect on my enthusiasm for Debian
^
 > (and I suspect others as well).  Linux needs Debian, but Debian needs
^
 > users.  The last thing I want to see is a Linux community dominated by
 > commercial distributions, but Debian can't succeed in the long run
 > without appealing to a wide user base, so as to have some influence on
 > the direction that Linux goes.  You would think that based on the tone
 > of the Debian website, Debian is meant to appeal to wide array of
 > people.  But the responses George got suggest otherwise.
 > 

Good, I think I am starting to see some good sense in this whole discution. 

Forgetting the version numbers matter (that was showed to be somehow silly
after George remembered LSB in his *second* posting), what I really could not
understand and neither expect was the hostility to newbies.

Oh, yes, I agree with that community staff. This is one of the major issues in
Linux that atract me. But shouldn't we be a community open to the others?
Shouldn't we initiate people into "light" of open software? Surely lots of
people that don't "contribute to community" may start after a while. Maybe,
like me, they won't be developers (some surely will), but they can share their
knowledge with freasher newbies, they can say: hey, you have a choise, you're
not supposed to use this or that OS, you don't have to fight againt, but you
may fight with.

I am using Debian for a year and a half and I think it is the best. But I also
thought people over there were polite and reasonable, and, unfortunately, that
was not what I could find out in *some* e-mails in this thread. Does anyone
doubt that George is an Debian supporter and that everything he was saying,
even if nonsense, should be treated with good will?

One last point, that was already said out there is: being able to run *any*
kind of linux software is surely technical excellence. I, for example, use
Fortran 90 to code numerical stuff. And I was not able to find a free Fortran
90 compiler, so I have to use commercial software. So why should I drop Debian
to use it. No way! And I hope I will never be obliged to do it.

Paulo.

PS: To whom may be interested there is a frotran 90 - fortran 77 (g77)
translator free for non-commercial use in the net. Take a look at:

http://www.psrv.com/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Ed Cogburn]

George Bonser wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George R wrote:
> 
> > I'm neither a sysadmin nor a kernel programmer, I'm not even a unix
> > user, I'm just a guy that wanted something stable that was still
> > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny thing,
> > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
> > about various OSs.
> 
> Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think I
> have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.
> 
> Debian can be a really great technical OS but if I can not install a
> particular commercial application and the vendor says "We do not support
> Debian because they are non-standard"  then debian goes out the door if
> the project depends on the application.
> 
> I will try to go back to the original point by saying that with some sort
> of a standard base, and if Debian were to take part in it, I could rest
> assured that the application WILL run on Debian. If Debian ignores the
> standard and other sign onto it, Debian dies. End of story.
> 
> Also, I have read comments here today from people that have no idea what
> free software is. They think it means non-commercial. They think it means
> free in the financial sense. All it means is that you get the source code
> when you get the binaries and you are free to modify and distribute the
> source.
> 
> I am really ashamed at some of the comments I see here from people. I
> started out by saying that Debian should have a clearer policy for
> determining versions and then noted that the LSB (if you don't know what
> it is, search Freshmeat) would take care of the concerns I had and then I
> get this load of attitude about screw the users, the Central Committee
> will decide what is best for you (the second time I have use those words
> on this list in the last year).
> 
> People have to understand that it is the commercial applications that will
> make Linux. Is Mozilla free ... yes. Is Netscape COmmunicator? No. Mozilla
> is like a reference standard implementation. Netscape might be BASED on
> Mozilla but you will not see the source code for Navigator-4.5.
> 
> I am willing to pay for good software that works, I am not willing to pay
> for software that sucks and I am not willing to put up with crappy
> software just because it is free. I use Debian because it is the best
> distribution of Linux and it provides me with what I need right now.
> 
> The one main thing that debian has going for it is dselect and apt. The
> second thing is the integration and testing. These are good. Even with
> these things, if commercial applications can not be integrated easilly, it
> is a curiosity. More so in a couple of years than now. Things like Corel
> Office and other products are coming down the pike that will push debian
> into the workplace and possibly prevent people from having Debian at home
> because of software support issues if the basic standards are not met.
> 
> That is the point that I create a slightly modified subset of Debian that
> does conform to the standard and sell the sucker for $100 a pop to
> businesses needing a better Linux than Red Hat.
> 
> George Bonser


I have to agree with George, excepting that ultimately no one can
force the developers of Debian to do things in a particular way if they
don't want to.  Apparently it comes down to what is the majority opinion
among the developers:  do they want Debian to have a broader appeal or
are they satisfied with it appealing only to a small high-tech clique.
I like Debian; I chose it because of the tight, sophisticated package
management that was night and day better than Slackware and slightly
better
(at the time) than RH (probably still is).  Its core is OpenSource,
which to me is good, but its not hostile to other kinds of software.
I've read this thread over the last couple of days and am disturbed.  I
understood from the beginning what George was saying; his example and
analogy was clear to me, i.e., those not familiar with the linux
universe might conclude that Deb uses linux v2.0 and RH uses linux
v5.1.  This may seem silly at first, but I'm sure that we've all made an
incorrect (and possibly in hindsight, silly) assumption at one point in
our lives about something that we were not knowledgeable about.
Hopefully the LSB or something will provide some base reference that
can
provide prospective users a better way to compare the different
distributions, not to mention making it easier for software vendors to
support Linux.  In general, without knowing the specifics of course,
it sounds like a reasonable idea, at least from reading about it on
freshmeat, it sounds reasonable.
The responses to George's suggestion were . . . interesting.  I wonder
if the majority of developers share this hostility towards new users. 
It would certainly have a sobering effect on my enthusiasm for Debian
(and I suspect others as well).  Linux needs Debian, but Debian need

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Mark Phillips]

Hmm.  I started this thread, but it moved to a different topic very
quickly!  Getting back to the original point: there have been a couple of
responses from people who have said that they did see the release of 
Debian 2.0 on Linux Announce, yet I don't think I ever received it ---
I am subscribed to [EMAIL PROTECTED]  And there
was a reply from one other person who didn't see it.  I wonder whether the
announcement made it to the actual news group, but not to the mailing
list?  On the other hand, perhaps I just missed it (but I don't think so
because I was looking out for it).


And while I'm here, perhaps I'll comment on the seemingly running battle
between George Bonser and almost everyone else.  I've been disappointed in
the sometimes less than generous attitude displayed in this debate,
especially at George's expense.  There have been several posts which have
misrepresented George's arguments in a belittling way.  I don't completely
agree with George, but I think he has some good points, and his arguments
certainly warrent more considerate responses than he has always received.
Don't get me wrong --- I'm not saying all the responses were like this ---
a number of responses have been constructive.  But there have been too
many that haven't been.

George is obviously a strong supporter of Debian and I would be
greatly saddened if the kind of reaction he received caused him to lose
some of that enthusiasm.  As Manoj said, Debian is about being a
community.  One of the things that drew me to Debian originally was this
sense of community and of tremendous goodwill.  I get the sense that ever
since Bruce left, the Debian morale has dropped, and some of the goodwill
with it.  If Debian is to be successful into the future, we need to ensure
morale and goodwill is high.  Part of what is needed is that we treat
people with a little more respect than I have seen evidenced in this
debate.


As for the actual debate, I think Manoj is right when he says that
developers can't be __required__ to be motivated by a desire to serve the
users.  The developers are donating their own free time to this project
and can't be __required__ to do anything.  I imagine motivations of
developers differ across the group.  But it seems that striving for
technical excellence is a strong common theme --- something to be grateful
for.

I also have sympathies with some of George's concerns that marketing and
Debian advocasy considerations are not given a high enough priority.  On
the one hand I agree with developers when they say they don't wish to
compromise on technical excellence for the sake of marketing
considerations.  On the other hand, I think we should take marketing
considerations seriously and do what we can here without compromising
too much on technical aspects.

Technical excellence is about doing something well, and coming up with a
system which is highly capable.  One measure of capability is how much
software runs on the system.  If RedHat runs a greater variety of
commercial applications than Debian, then in that sense RedHat is
technically superior to Debian (even though in other senses it may be
inferior).  I think Debian should strive for technical excellence in every
sense, and part of this requires that we take marketing considerations
seriously.

If we are to see commercial applications ported to Debian, we need to be
expanding our user base.  Surely we want the kind of people George refered
to, as users.  They are obviously competant in unix and (unlike the
suggestions of some emails) intelligent.  Perhaps they are not currently
very "contribute to the free software community" minded, but that may well
change.  Indeed, when they see the generosity of the people who have
contributed to make Debian the great system which it is today, I would be
very surprised if at least some of them were not motivated to contribute
in return.  By not taking these type of people seriously, I think we could
be missing out on important developers of the future.

Cheers,

Mark.

__
_\/___\__/___Mark_Phillips___/
\__/_\__/--\__/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
\__/HE___\__/--APTAIN/   
\__/_\__/--\__/__/  /__"To be is to do."__I. Kant___/
\__/__\__/___/  /__"To do is to be."__A. Sartre_/
/__"I am."God___/
/__Jesus did.___/



--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[George R]

On 08/03/98 at 11:53 AM, George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>Well, it is obvious that some people here are just being hard headed. I
>really do not think there are that many dummies here.  Look at it like
>this. A person wants Linux and decides to spend about 30 minutes to
>choose which one they are going to buy. These are sysadmins, not kernel
>programmers. They take a quick glance, note that Red Hat is 5.2, Debian
>is 2.0 and all the commercial apps ship configured for Red Hat, end of
>decision making process. They see 2.0 Linux and 5.2 linux NOT Debian
>2.0 and Red Hat 5.2  It is how their minds work. 

I'm neither a sysadmin nor a kernel programmer, I'm not even a unix
user, I'm just a guy that wanted something stable that was still
progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time).  Funny thing,
when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
about various OSs.  It came down to unix or linux (FreeBSD vs Linux
actually).  In the end linux won because of the controlled chaos
development style.  Then I looked at differant distros.  Debian, RedHat,
and Slackware were the final contenders.  Red Hat lost out after reading
the news groups and linux lists.  From there it became a hard choice,
the total hacker slackware _or_ the commercial grade 100% free debian. 
Debian won out.  Since then I have tried RH, reformatted the drive and
re-installed Debian.

That said, if all they do is see 2.0 vs 5.2 then they don't need either
Debian or Red Hat.  They need to stay with what they use at work OR get
Win9x.  Intelligent selection seems to be beyond their ability.

George


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[George R]

On 08/03/98 at 02:27 AM, George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>Manoj, I find that remark disturbing. That is who you are writing the
>software for. The luser community produces the developers over time.
>Without a stong and vital user base, you will not attract a good
>developer community. If something happens to make Debian user-hostile
>and your user base dwindles, you will find that your developer base
>will dwindle as well. 


Stop right there!  The luser community doesn't produce developers (at
least such cases are very rare).  I'm no where near a developer, yet I'm
even further away from being a luser.  Given a few years I may/will
become a developer, but until then I'll still be classed as geek, junior
grade on Linux full fledged on other sysytems.

I may not develope, but I sure contribute to the best of my ability (buy
the CDs, evangalize, and only carry hardware that is linux friendly).

George


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[mwb]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> Well, it is obvious that some people here are just being hard headed. I
> really do not think there are that many dummies here.  Look at it like
> this. A person wants Linux and decides to spend about 30 minutes to choose
> which one they are going to buy. These are sysadmins, not kernel
> programmers. They take a quick glance, note that Red Hat is 5.2, Debian is
> 2.0 and all the commercial apps ship configured for Red Hat, end of
  ^^->**   
> decision making process.
  ***
> They see 2.0 Linux and 5.2 linux NOT Debian 2.0
> and Red Hat 5.2  It is how their minds work. 

They should choose Red Hat for the reasons you stated.  If we should
choose select version numbers based on other distribution version numbers
(which I don't think we should), we should keep our version numbers LOWER
than Red Hat et al, as we do not what the users you described using Debian
that will:
1)  Try to get support that we cannot provide for the commercial software.
(at least not as well as the companies selling the commercial
software).
3)  Get frustrated with Debian (and Linux).
4)  Avoid using Debian (and Linux).

Trying to get them to use a distribution that is not well suited for them 
will not help Debian, and in this example, Debian is not the best
distribution for them. However, getting them use the distribution
that is right for them will help the Linux community as a whole, which
in turn, will help Debian.

Mark W. Blunier
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> The bottom line is this:

 George> If the Linux distributions do not share a common filesystem
 George> layout and to some basic degree a common set of libraries,
 George> software vendors will simply pick one distribution as the
 George> development target and not support other distributions. This
 George> is already happening to some extent. The distributions that
 George> are close enough to the main target will be supported and the
 George> fringe distributions will simply not be supported by the
 George> ISV's because it will be too labor intensive and too small of
 George> a market to matter.

Known issues. What do you think the FSSTND and the FHS are all
 about? Debian is committed to following them. When the other
 distributions start following standards, we shall have the
 commonality you desire.

The software base is supposed to be the missing half of that. 

I think that Debian is unlikely to be suppoerted by most
 ISV's. (Ever see a thrid party .deb package? apart from the abortive
 KDE set?)

manoj
-- 
 "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
 Albert Einstein On Knowledge
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> Well, it is obvious that some people here are just being hard
 George> headed. I really do not think there are that many dummies
 George> here.  Look at it like this. A person wants Linux and decides
 George> to spend about 30 minutes to choose which one they are going
 George> to buy. These are sysadmins, not kernel programmers. They
 George> take a quick glance, note that Red Hat is 5.2, Debian is
 George> 2.0 and all the commercial apps ship configured for Red Hat, end of
 George> decision making process. They see 2.0 Linux and 5.2 linux NOT Debian 
2.0
 George> and Red Hat 5.2  It is how their minds work. 

Then I definitely do not think I want to support such
 people. My time is better spent elsewhere. Anyone who spends merely
 30 minutes to pick an OS, and makes a decision based on name/version,
 deserves what they get, and would only clutter up whatever help
 conduits we have.



 George> The crux of the issue is not version numbers ... it is about
 George> portability and standardization between Linux
 George> distributions. If Debian and Red Hat share the same
 George> filesystem layout and basic core libraries, applications will
 George> be portable between them even though they look and feel
 George> different.

Well, the minute Red Hat changes their version numbers and
 starts following the Linux File system standards, we shall all be in
 sync.

At the moment, moving to the new Linux File Heirarchy Stnadard
 (FHS) is way more important than doing whatever the myriad different
 distributions are doing. Standards. We follow them.

manoj

-- 
 "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been
 granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
 I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it." John
 F. Kennedy (from his Inaugural Address)
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Brandon Mitchell]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> Look at it like this. A person wants Linux and decides to spend about 30
> minutes to choose which one they are going to buy. These are sysadmins,
> not kernel programmers. They take a quick glance, note that Red Hat is
> 5.2, Debian is 2.0 and all the commercial apps ship configured for Red
> Hat, end of decision making process. They see 2.0 Linux and 5.2 linux
> NOT Debian 2.0 and Red Hat 5.2 It is how their minds work. 

1) If you only spend 30 minutes picking an os, you deserve what you get.
2) One of Debian's fundamental ideas is free software, not commercial
   software.  That is what you see the commercial software with red hat.

(This isn't to say we are opposed to commercial software, they are free to
 make deb's if they want.)

We are following the same idea in distributions as linux does in the os
field: if our product is good enough, people will use it.  To see what
marketing does to a product, look at ms products.

Brandon (who still has a beta vcr in his bedroom)

--+--
Brandon Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Debian Testing Group Status
PGP Key:   finger -l [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  http://bhmit1.home.ml.org/deb/
Dijkstra probably hates me (Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c)


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> I explain to them that it is like SVR4. There are SEVERAL different
> versions of SVR4 put out by several companies each with their own version
> numbering but they are all SVR4. Once I do that, they question how
> protable applications are from one distribution to another and I say it is
> about like porting between SCO and Solaris or HP-UX and Solaris.

Well, that's where you go wrong. Where did this myth come from that linux
biniaries are distribution-dependant? Everything works everywhere in my
experience.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 06:22:00PM +0200, Peter Gervai wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 11:39:26AM -0400, Stephen J. Carpenter wrote:
> 
> > good point...and who even says version numbers have to work in that way 
> > anyway?
> > Many individual programs have versions like "19980420" ...or what
> > if I want to start with 100 and count down ;) or increase it by powers of 3?
> > (yes these are even more silly...but still possible)
> 
> check the version number of TeX!

Hehe. TeX and Metafont will NEVER catch up.

(FYI, kind reader, TeX's version number converges to PI=3.14159...
 and Metafonts version number to exp(1)2.71828..., both in a monoton raising
 sequence).

Marcus

-- 
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god."Debian GNU/Linuxfinger brinkmd@ 
Marcus Brinkmann   http://www.debian.orgmaster.debian.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]for public  PGP Key
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/   PGP Key ID 36E7CD09


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 10:27:47AM -0700, George Bonser wrote:
> 
> Brian, these people do not use Windows, they want to use Unix because that
> is what they know. They are just not familliar with Linux in general. They
> never touch the internet after work and in general, have lives. They are
> not Unix illiterate, they are Linux illiterate. 
> 
> You guys need to get out of your little world and step back and look and
> the big picture. Yes, there are a lot of people using Linux and just about
> everyone has heard the word before. Most in the commercial Unix world have
> never seen a Linux machine running, have never considered installing one
> until very recently or have just run into it.  In our case, the old-timers
> were laughing Linux off as another toy OS (and in some ways  the 2.0
> kernels are) and it has not been until they started getting questions from
> customers that they start coming to me and asking because I am the company
> Linux advocate.
> 
> These are people that work all day on computers and do not want to look at
> one when they get home.  They are not computer hobbyists.

George,

please try to make a step back and calm down.

Version numbering schemes are in no way linux specific, so even a linux
ignorant person can get the idea. It should be sufficient to explain them
that Debian Linux and RedHat Linux are two different products, as well as
Windows Nt and Windows 95 are. This should be enough to understand.

Try to keep them informed. Debians version numbering scheme is as good as
any other scheme. We don't do this for marketing reasons, though.

Marcus


-- 
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god."Debian GNU/Linuxfinger brinkmd@ 
Marcus Brinkmann   http://www.debian.orgmaster.debian.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]for public  PGP Key
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/   PGP Key ID 36E7CD09


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

I don't uderstand. The are Linux illiterate, and they display
 all the discerning qualities of 2 year olds, they do not want to shop
 around and learn about the merits of the distribution, and they do
 not want to spend time because they are no hobbyists.

Why do I want them then? Seems to mee that Red Hat makes a
 fine distribution of Linux for them. They do not seem like people who
 cintribute to the community. 

manoj
 community, not world domination

>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


 George> Brian, these people do not use Windows, they want to use Unix
 George> because that is what they know. They are just not familliar
 George> with Linux in general. They never touch the internet after
 George> work and in general, have lives. They are not Unix
 George> illiterate, they are Linux illiterate.

 George> You guys need to get out of your little world and step back
 George> and look and the big picture. Yes, there are a lot of people
 George> using Linux and just about everyone has heard the word
 George> before. Most in the commercial Unix world have never seen a
 George> Linux machine running, have never considered installing one
 George> until very recently or have just run into it.  In our case,
 George> the old-timers were laughing Linux off as another toy OS (and
 George> in some ways the 2.0 kernels are) and it has not been until
 George> they started getting questions from customers that they start
 George> coming to me and asking because I am the company Linux
 George> advocate.

 George> These are people that work all day on computers and do not
 George> want to look at one when they get home.  They are not
 George> computer hobbyists.




-- 
 "We jumped into this area without knowing what we were jumping into."
 Hubert H. Humphrey, October 22, 1969
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> Jeez, I never said I had trouble with it, only that it is
 George> confusing to people in the real unix world that have not been
 George> exposed to it. Get it through your head that not everyone
 George> that uses Unix has ever seen a Linux machine, has ever looked
 George> at a Linux website, or has even seriously considered
 George> installing it anywhere. These people tend to have a SPARC2 or
 George> better on their desk at home running Solaris or maybe an IPC
 George> or IPX running SunOS.

Great. I fail to this as being relevant to our numbering policy.

 George> WHen you say Linux they want to know if it is *BSD or
 George> SVR4. That is all they know and they know it extremely well.

Does not seem to be people who contribute to the free software
 community much. 

 George> Of about 60 Unix people in our company about 4 have probably
 George> seen a Linux machine. Most of our people are applications
 George> people ... ClearCase for example does not run on Linux and
 George> those people are likely to never see a linux box in their
 George> work. They use either Solaris or Windows at home.

So tell me again, why am I supposed to be interested?  I think
 Red Hat is the perfect distribution for them. They make a fine OS.

manoj
 baffled
-- 
 "Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly.  In 1926 Robert
 H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket, achieving an
 altitude of 41 feet.  In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth.  In 1969,
 only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground for
 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon in
 Apollo 11." Michael Collins Former astronaut and past Director of the
 National Air and Space Museum
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Sun, Aug 02, 1998 at 10:41:42PM -0700, George Bonser wrote:
> On 3 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> > 
> 
> Some of these people are highly skilled Solaris system administrators that
> do not understand the concept of the different distributions and
> versioning until I explain it to them. All they know at first glance is
> Debian is shipping 2.0 Linux while Red Hat is shipping 5.2 Linux so they
> think Debian is sorely out of date.

I study mathematics. My personal advice is that you give the highly skilled
Solaris system administrators a primary school book on mathematic.

they'll soon find out that they can't compare apples with pies.

What is heavier? One ton of feathers or one ton of steel?

Marcus, *baffled*

-- 
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god."Debian GNU/Linuxfinger brinkmd@ 
Marcus Brinkmann   http://www.debian.orgmaster.debian.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]for public  PGP Key
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/   PGP Key ID 36E7CD09


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Brandon Mitchell]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, Brandon Mitchell wrote:
> 
> > Moral of the story, version numbers are specific to the product, don't
> > bother comparing.
> 
> Jeez, I never said I had trouble with it, only that it is confusing to
> people in the real unix world that have not been exposed to it. Get it
> through your head that not everyone that uses Unix has ever seen a Linux
> machine, has ever looked at a Linux website, or has even seriously
> considered installing it anywhere. These people tend to have a SPARC2 or
> better on their desk at home running Solaris or maybe an IPC or IPX
> running SunOS.

Now now, let's not ruffle any feathers.  I also know people that are unix
only.  I'm just trying to be realistic.  What kind of solution are you
looking for?  

!) Better definition of when a major release happens?  This can be added
to policy.  At the rate debian-devel is pushing for 3-4 month releases,
I'd say make the major number change whenever one of these releases
acheives a major Debian goal (i.e. the new file system layout or apt with
all the gui stuff). 

2) The addition of LSB numbers to our distribution?  When they have
something done and put a version number on it, I'd assume debian, red hat,
and others will all do this.

3) More frequent major release numbers?  This seems to be an artificial
inflation of numbers for no reason other than some attempt to compare us
by version number alone to other distributions.

4) Smarter users?  This is the best solution, but I don't know if there
are many here willing to open a school for your friends.

Brandon

P.S. What's the version number on your friends copy of unix?  I think I'll
try banning the use of sun at my work place because they are only at
version 2.6 :-)

--+--
Brandon Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Debian Testing Group Status
PGP Key:   finger -l [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  http://bhmit1.home.ml.org/deb/
Dijkstra probably hates me (Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c)


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Gary L. Hennigan]

Mark Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
| I didn't ever notice an announcement of the release of Debian 2.0 on Linux
| Announce (apart from the beta announcement).  Maybe I just missed it ---
| did someone see it? 
| 
| Just thought I'd mention it because we do want people to know about it I
| think!

It was there. I saw it the same day 2.0 was released.

Gary


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Peter Gervai]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 11:39:26AM -0400, Stephen J. Carpenter wrote:

> good point...and who even says version numbers have to work in that way 
> anyway?
> Many individual programs have versions like "19980420" ...or what
> if I want to start with 100 and count down ;) or increase it by powers of 3?
> (yes these are even more silly...but still possible)

check the version number of TeX!

cya,
grin

... enter any 65536 digits prime to proceed


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"Robert" == Robert Claeson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 Robert> If Informix was to create a Debian package of their
 Robert> database, would they be prohibited from doing so?

By no means. Third party vendors are encouraged to make Debian
 packages, even if the terms under which they are available preclude
 their distribution by Debian.

manoj

-- 
 "Data is a lot like humans: It is born.  Matures.  Gets married to
 other data, divorced. Gets old.  One thing that it doesn't do is die.
 It has to be killed." Arthur Miller
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Stephen J. Carpenter]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 08:55:00AM -0500, Nathan E Norman wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:
> 
> : George Bonser wrote:
> : > No, LSB would not dictate Debian's version but Debian could say that
> : > Debian-2.0 is LSB-1.2 compliant and someone looking at Red Hat 5.2 might
> : > see that it, too, is LSB-1.2 compliant and get the idea that both are
> : > roughly equal.
> : 
> : Someone might today, see that both debian and redhat contain kernel 2.0 and
> : draw the conclusion they are both about equally up-to-date. Both
> : distributions mentinn which kernel they contain in press releases and ads
> : and so on. The fact that some people don't make this connection doesn't make
> : me optimistic about them being less confused when a third version number is
> : added to the mix.
> 
> Has it actually been determined that the LSB will provide version
> numbers to be used in such a context?  If not, then this whole argument
> is silly.
> 
> Even then it's a bit silly - let's imagine that a new Linux distribution
> arrived on the scene.  They're either going to start versioning with a
> number between zero and one, or pull a fast one and jack up their
> version number?!

good point...and who even says version numbers have to work in that way 
anyway?
Many individual programs have versions like "19980420" ...or what
if I want to start with 100 and count down ;) or increase it by powers of 3?
(yes these are even more silly...but still possible)
-Steve
-- 
/* -- Stephen Carpenter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
*/
E-mail "Bumper Stickers":
"A FREE America or a Drug-Free America: You can't have both!"
"honk if you Love Linux"


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Paul]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:

> Why do you expect non-geek will know what version of LSB his system complies
> with? LSB isn't something innately easier for non-geek to comprehend than
> the libc or kernel version. Remember that the concept of standards is just
> as foreign to non-geeks as is the concept of kernels. We already advertise
> our kernel version. If people don't know it, there is no reason to suppose
> they would know the LSB version if we advertised that.

I have been using Linux since 1994, I do not know what LSB is. Guess
I am not a geek ;-(  or worse than a non-geek :-)

/*** Running Debian Linux ***
*   For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,  *
*   that whoever believes in Him should not perish...John 3:16  *
* W. Paul Mills  *  Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.  *
* EMAIL= [EMAIL PROTECTED]  *  WWW= http://Mills-USA.com/  *
* Bill, I was there several years ago, why would I want to go back? *
/


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Nathan E Norman]

On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:

: George Bonser wrote:
: > No, LSB would not dictate Debian's version but Debian could say that
: > Debian-2.0 is LSB-1.2 compliant and someone looking at Red Hat 5.2 might
: > see that it, too, is LSB-1.2 compliant and get the idea that both are
: > roughly equal.
: 
: Someone might today, see that both debian and redhat contain kernel 2.0 and
: draw the conclusion they are both about equally up-to-date. Both
: distributions mentinn which kernel they contain in press releases and ads
: and so on. The fact that some people don't make this connection doesn't make
: me optimistic about them being less confused when a third version number is
: added to the mix.

Has it actually been determined that the LSB will provide version
numbers to be used in such a context?  If not, then this whole argument
is silly.

Even then it's a bit silly - let's imagine that a new Linux distribution
arrived on the scene.  They're either going to start versioning with a
number between zero and one, or pull a fast one and jack up their
version number?!

--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD  57104
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net
finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)



--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Tyson Dowd]

On 03-Aug-1998, Robert Claeson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Maybe I'm wrong or too phragmatic, but I just don't see much of a
> problem with using free and non-free code in the same system. If
> Informix was to create a Debian package of their database, would they
> be prohibited from doing so?

They are free (even encouraged) to do so.  If they simply provide a
tar file, an installer .deb will certainly be accepted too.
It's your system, Debian has no control (or desire to control) what
you do with it, or what other people add to it.  Informix would be
quite free to take Debian, add their database, and sell the whole
system.

It's just that the Debian system couldn't support the database, so it
cannot be part of the main Debian distribution.  After all, Debian
doesn't have the source code around to fix any problems.  This one
reason why Debian draws a distinction between free and non-free.

Debian insisting on free software for the main distribution is
pragmatic, not just idealistic.  Debian provides a lot of support for
non-free programs, it just can't provide full support.

Tyson.


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[servis]

*- George Bonser wrote about "Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux 
Announce?"
| 
| I have had people tell me that they are using Red Hat because it is at 5.2
| while Debian is still only at 2.0. The perception is that Red Hat is

I'm sorry but those people are ignorant then. Tell them to use
Windows98 it must be far superior to any Linux since it is at version
98!

Jeez,

-- 
Brian 

Mechanical Engineering  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Purdue University   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Brandon Mitchell]

On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> The problem with the current versioning system is that people look at
> Debian 2.0 and Red Hat 5.x and S.u.S.E 5.x and Slackware 3.x and figure
> Debian is seriously lagging when it is not.


There are two solutions to this problem:
1) change the next release number to 99
2) install windows 98
After all, they have a higher version number, so it must be a superior
product.  


Moral of the story, version numbers are specific to the product, don't
bother comparing.

Brandon

--+--
Brandon Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Debian Testing Group Status
PGP Key:   finger -l [EMAIL PROTECTED] |  http://bhmit1.home.ml.org/deb/
Dijkstra probably hates me (Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c)


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[jason and jill]

> other than Red Hat, Caldera, or S.u.S.E. versions of their applications.
> Try to talk Debian to them and they dismiss it saying they just do not
> have the time.

And your solution is what?

Debian jump to 6.0 and always make sure to stay a version number ahead of
Red Hat?  

"Hey, Red Hat just went to 6.0, we better rewrite a mouse driver and jump
to 7.0!!!"

>From your posts, it sounds like you are saying Red Hat is jerking off with
its version numbers, so Debian better start choking its chicken as well.

Jason


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Robert Claeson]

May I step in? I'm pretty new to this list.

Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> No. No. No. Let me put that foul canard to rest. I do *NOT*,
> repeat *NOT* write software for darned users. I write software
> because it pleases my muse, and becuase I feel like contributing to
> the free software community. This has come up before (in the debate
> that preceded Bruce's leaving the project).

I for one write software for "darned users" and has been doing it for the
last 13 years. That's simply how I make my living. If I were to contribute
to Debian, though (which is unlikely to happen at this time since there's no
time left to do so), I would still write for users *and* for my own
pleasure. If I can't make money from it but still do it, it must be because
I think it's fun, no? Otherwise I'd rather go fishing.

> Precisely. And Debian is not trying tobe the OS for
> everyone. We are trying for a certain niche. Debian may wel be the
> distribution people graduate to, after red hat.

I've worked with most commercial Unix and Unix-like systems out there and
also worked as a DG/UX developer at Data General. I've had all kinds of
problems with Red Hat. IMHO, Debian is the distribution that looks the most
like commercial Unix systems as I know them.

> What's wrong with that? Already, wordperfect is not available
> for Debian as a debian package. Oracle is unlikely to create a Debian
> package. Suse has servers that are not available as .debs either; nor
> are commercial X servers, or motif, or 

Debian is the most mature Linux distribution I've used and the one we trust
for the servers where I work. Given that, I'd really like to be able to use
Oracle or Informix or Jasmine or whatever, even though it's not free. Maybe
I'm wrong or too phragmatic, but I just don't see much of a problem with
using free and non-free code in the same system. If Informix was to create a
Debian package of their database, would they be prohibited from doing so?

/Robert


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 >> if they call me a geek, I call them a luser

 George> Manoj, I find that remark disturbing. That is who you are
 George> writing the software for.

No. No. No. Let me put that foul canard to rest. I do *NOT*,
 repeat *NOT* write software for darned users. I write software
 because it pleases my muse, and becuase I feel like contributing to
 the free software community. This has come up before (in the debate
 that preceded Bruce's leaving the project). 

No one dictates why I write the software. And, when it came up
 the last time, my views were shared by a fair segment of  the
 developers. 

 George> The luser community produces the developers over time.
 George> Without a stong and vital user base, you will not attract a
 George> good developer community. If something happens to make Debian
 George> user-hostile and your user base dwindles, you will find that
 George> your developer base will dwindle as well.

We are not user hostile. We are trying harder than ever for
 ease of use issues, for ease of use is a hallmark of a great
 technical distribution. However, we shall not be coerced by people
 saying "we are the users, we are never wrong, and when we say jump,
 you ask how high". Hell, no.


 George> The user community must have some kind of influence on the
 George> development community or they will go where their needs are
 George> being met.

Precisely. And Debian is not trying tobe the OS for
 everyone. We are trying for a certain niche. Debian may wel be the
 distribution people graduate to, after red hat.

 George> The market decides what is best, not the manufacturer. If
 George> nobody uses it, it is a waste of time making it.

The developers use it. For me, that is sufficient
 audience. There are other members of the free software community who
 understand what communal spirit is all about, and they are likely to
 use it too. And as long as we retain techncal excellence, we shall
 have people. 



 George> If commercial applications are available for all version
 George> except Debian, then Debian will never be more than a hobbyist
 George> distribution because few of the lusers will even try it.


What's wrong with that? Already, wordperfect is not available
 for Debian as a debian package. Oracle is unlikely to create a Debian
 package. Suse has servers that are not available as .debs either; nor
 are commercial X servers, or motif, or 

I refuse to be browbeaten by threats of Debia's premature
 demise. I shall continue to work on making Debian as good a
 distribution as I can, but I listen to technical arguments, not
 marketing pleas.

I do not think that shall kill Debian. And anyway, it would be
 better for debian to die rather than compromise on principles.

manoj
-- 
 Trained mules are excellent, and so are thoroughbred horses from the
 Sindh, and so are great battle elephants, but more excellent than
 them all is a disciplined man. 322
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Peter Gervai]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 02:46:38AM -0700, George Bonser wrote:

> > Major versions for ONLY major changes, minors for minor, and
> > not entering the version-number-hype-marketing-bandwagon is
> > the hackers' view of version numbers. 
> 
> What constitutes a major change is fuzzy. I think it should be set in
> policy. 2.0 was a no-brainer since the libc change means all of the
> application packages would not run, by default, on the older revision but
> will Linux-2.2 or 3.0 or whatever it will be cause a 3.0 release or will
> it be a 2.??

I think you have a point here (or I'm tired reading all this crap 
I'm writing :)), it could be decided generally what consists a minor 
and what a major advance in the Debian World.

These guidelines could be written down... however I doubt you'll
successful seeing them, ever. There so much unforeseen possible
changes, we hardly can give more precise definitions like those
fuzzy terms "major change". (You could try, however. You have to
convince developers first, though, not users.)

So far it seems "major" involves changing _all_ packages. 
Maybe kernel versions, if the system would change considerably
(as this seem to happen with 2.2.xx); these can be written down,
but not much more.

bests,
grin

=+===
Peter "grin" Gervai  |  "It  was  like  a  visit  by  Don Corleone. I
 Linux root at Cory-Net Ltd. | expected to find a  bloody computer monitor in
Szekszard, Hungary   | my bed the next day."  --  Mark Andreessen  of
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] on #linux.hu| Netscape regarding  the visit from  
microsoft.


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Peter Gervai]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 01:53:07AM -0700, George Bonser wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:

> True, but kernel version is not as important as libc version and
> filesystem layout. Kernel version really means very little. It simply
> provides an easy method of very basic configuration management. Not
> detailed ... I would not expect there to be more than a half-dozen things
> that the LSB should specify ... maybe 10 at most.

Well I'm fascinated watching this debate.

First, I would like to comment that for some weird reason I do not
like "version number maniac" companies, where the version numbers of
programs goes sky high in quite a short term. Major versions every
3-6 months, with little to none core changes. I think even RedHat 
did it with a little bad taste, they fired the version number into the
sky, new minor every 3 months, new major every half year? Uhm, not my
style. I won't look forward to RedHat 99. :-o

Other part is the kernel you mention. The kernel version IS important.
Heck, those non-geeks ask first: "Hey, what version of kernel this
distro' have? 2.0.34? Naaahhh, it's old, they told me!" And regarding
this RedHat versions is WY out of range. I think, for a change,
you should try to convince RedHat to go back to version 2.0.xx because
this matches the kernel. Debian is just okay, v2.0 for the 2.0.xx 
kernels. :-)))

So, there are many factors. You like high version numbers, you like
"comparable version numbers" (I think of StarOffice and micro$oft word
here for example), you like a next major version everytime there is
more than 10 files changed in the distribution.

Debian people seem to like the other way. Small version numbers show
that there were few required bugfixes, updated updates, since the
distribution is perfect. ;-> They raise major _only_ when there was
a _major_ change, like libc5->libc6 which could be considered like one.
Neither older ones, nor hamm->slink won't be a big leap (unless maybe
we'll be fortunate enough to have 2.2.xx kernels in our hands then,
but I think not even that would be major enough).

Major versions for ONLY major changes, minors for minor, and
not entering the version-number-hype-marketing-bandwagon is
the hackers' view of version numbers. And non-geeks can realise 
it, too. (As for those you mentioned watching only the version numbers, 
well, if there wouldn't be stupid people the psychiatrists would 
starve to death.)

And, for closing, let me quote a wise man (I think it was Occam but
I let anyone fix my mistakes :)) regarding these numbers, too:


 "Small is beautiful!"


:)

bye,
grin
(using an operating system with a 
core kernel version LESS THAN the decade.)


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:
 >> Why do you expect non-geek will know what version of LSB his
 >> system complies with?

 George> Because it would be right on the Debian Website and probably
 George> on the software box.

So, until the LSB becomes anything more than vapourware, would
 keeping the current kernel-source and libc version on the Debian site
 suffice? Then the looser can look it up (if we are to be reffered to
 as geeks, I reserve the right to refer to people who call us geeks
 lusers) just as easily.

manoj
-- 
 No books are lost by lending except those you particularly want to
 keep. Alan Atwood
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> On 3 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
 >> Market domination is not a goal for me.

 George> No, but being able to even be IN the market should be.

We have remained alive without having to jump through hoops
 for lusers so far.

manoj
 if they call me a geek, I call them a luser
-- 
 "The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live
 ones." Nathaniel Howe
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> Never anywhere in any posting did I even imply that. Where do you get this
> stuff? What I am saying is that they WILL likely conform to some version
> of LSB in the future.  If WonderWare 54.2 is targeted for LSB-2.1 and my
> Debian-13.2 system is also LSB-2.1 compliant, I know that application will
> run on my system. If it is not, I can look at a chart that tells me which
> version of of Debian I should upgrade to. 

It seems to me that you are changing the course of your argument in
mid-stream. You started this thread asking if we could increment the major
version number more often. Now you've changed to wanting us to note the LSB
version. Once LSB exists and has versions, I'm sure we will. I'm also sure
it will do no good.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> Let me put it another way.  Non-geek calls software vendor to buy
> WonderWare for Linux. He asks if it will run on his system. The guy asks
> what version of libc he is using. The non-geek says he has no idea. Vendor
> asks what the LSB version is and the non-geek says 1.2. Vendor says he
> must upgrade his system to a LSB-1.3 compliant version and to see his
> Linux Distribution's website for details.

Why do you expect non-geek will know what version of LSB his system complies
with? LSB isn't something innately easier for non-geek to comprehend than
the libc or kernel version. Remember that the concept of standards is just
as foreign to non-geeks as is the concept of kernels. We already advertise
our kernel version. If people don't know it, there is no reason to suppose
they would know the LSB version if we advertised that.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


 George> THere are still a great many Solaris, HP-UX, and Irix admins
 George> who have heard the word Linux but that is about the extent of
 George> their exposure. Many still laugh with Linux is mentioned.

Yes, ignorance is a blight on the world. Idiots abound,
 too. Not enough reason for us to change our versioning scheme for, so
 far.

 George> As I mentined earlier, they do not understand at first that
 George> the version numbers are for the distributions, not of Linux
 George> itself. They are used to dealing in a world where things have
 George> particular versions. They know HP-UX 10.20 or Solaris 2.5.1
 George> but they can not understand different versions of the same OS
 George> being the same until it is explained to them. They would not
 George> understand Sun Solaris at 2.6 and WonderWare Solaris at 4.1.

Yes, Yes. But what does this have to do with our versioning?
 Their ignorance is their cross to bear. 

 George> THe next thing out of their mouth is that they wonder how
 George> incompatable the different distributions are and most at that
 George> point dismiss Linux because they just do not have the time to
 George> sort it all out. They are busy and do not intend to become a
 George> hobbyist. If they try Linux, they go with Red Hat because it
 George> is "the standard". All other distributions are seen as fringe
 George> efforts by these people. THey look at the commercial
 George> applications providers such as Applix, Informix, etc. and
 George> note that few if any ship other than Red Hat, Caldera, or
 George> S.u.S.E. versions of their applications.  Try to talk Debian
 George> to them and they dismiss it saying they just do not have the
 George> time.

Wonderful. We shall thank the lord fasting. I am unsure why we
 need people like that. They vertainly do not seem part of the free
 software community yet. When they learn better, maybe they too shall
 come unto the fold. In the meanwhile, red hat may indeed be the
 better distribution for them. If they fail to investigate before they
 make a choice, I sure do not want them; they do not sound like they
 have the time or the inclination to contribute to the community. And
 this is about community.

Market domination is not a goal for me.

manoj
-- 
 "A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming." Henry Spencer
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> People that are not Unix SysAdmin's by trade or hobby are not
 George> going to give a rat's pair of hips what version of libc they
 George> have. People have a job to do that usually does not involve
 George> spending hours of learning a lot of little anal-retentive
 George> details about the inner workings of their systems.

Hmm. I call it getting to know the tools of your trade. I
 would not hire a builder that did not know how to use a saw, or was
 not at all concerned what size nails they were using. I would not
 hire a sysadmin who did not learn about the system

And nobody is talking about "hours of learning" when it comes
 to versioning. However, anyone who balks at learningt is not likely
 to remain technically current anyway. 

 George> There are two choices. Make a techno-geek distribution that
 George> is a maze of details and requires hours of reading and place
 George> a big warning on the website along the lines of "Stupid
 George> Windows Users keep the hell out of here, we do not want you
 George> or your silly-assed quaestions" (which is what I heard during
 George> the course of this thread) OR you can provide a simple system
 George> of versioning that spceifies compliance to things like the
 George> FHS and LSB that will make things a lot easier for
 George> application providers and users.

There are other choices than the extremes you present. Also, I
 fail to see how a 3 character versioning system has anything to do
 with being easier to specify compliance to FHS and the LSB than a 5
 char numbering system. 

Oh, you mean that red hat and suse and debian and caldera
 shall have the same version number? Hah!.

There are differences between the distributions. Rather than
 attempting to hide tem by simplistic subterfuges like giving them the
 same version number, we should instead be educating the masses.

Or else you'll have to field questions like: I bough Linux
 3.3.3 from Caldera, and Linux 3.3.3 from Debian, and how come they
 are not the same? How come Debian does not come with wordperfect? 
 
manoj

-- 
 "We're the weirdest monkeys ever." Karl Lehenbauer
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:
 >> I have to wonder why such people bother with linux (2.0) when there are such
 >> obviously numerically superior os's out there like, say, windows (95).

 George> I suppose the Linux Standard Base will provide common
 George> versioning over distributions and take care of this
 George> problem. I fear that it will end up being Red Hat driven,
 George> though.

Nope, the LSB is not going to determine version numbering. And
 I vote we go andbeat all them distributions out there.  Lets call the
 next version 1002.1.

There. That should convince the world. No wonder we are not
 world beaters. We just missed out on the version number. Look out,
 microsoft, here we come. 

manoj
-- 
 Who stole the cork from my breakfast?  -- W. C. Fields
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> Some of these people are highly skilled Solaris system
 George> administrators that do not understand the concept of the
 George> different distributions and versioning until I explain it to
 George> them. All they know at first glance is Debian is shipping 2.0
 George> Linux while Red Hat is shipping 5.2 Linux so they think
 George> Debian is sorely out of date.

Skilled. Hmm. What version is Solaris? Has it reached 98 yet?
 Guess they shall move on to become skilled Windows 98 admins then?
 Would they like us better if we called it version 102.1?
 Man, that would beat all them operating systems out there.

manoj
 who finds people who look at just version numbers to be like people
 who believe in horoscopes,
-- 
 Like water on a lotus leaf, like a mustard seed on the point of an
 pin, he who is not stuck to the senses - that is what I call a
 brahmin. 401
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> No, LSB would not dictate Debian's version but Debian could say that
> Debian-2.0 is LSB-1.2 compliant and someone looking at Red Hat 5.2 might
> see that it, too, is LSB-1.2 compliant and get the idea that both are
> roughly equal.

Someone might today, see that both debian and redhat contain kernel 2.0 and
draw the conclusion they are both about equally up-to-date. Both
distributions mentinn which kernel they contain in press releases and ads
and so on. The fact that some people don't make this connection doesn't make
me optimistic about them being less confused when a third version number is
added to the mix.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> I suppose the Linux Standard Base will provide common versioning over
> distributions and take care of this problem. I fear that it will end up
> being Red Hat driven, though.

I would be very scared if the LSB went into such a level of detail and tried
to dictatte to much to the maintainers of a distribution. Our version number
is our business, not the LSB's.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

George Bonser wrote:
> Some of these people are highly skilled Solaris system administrators that
> do not understand the concept of the different distributions and
> versioning until I explain it to them. All they know at first glance is
> Debian is shipping 2.0 Linux while Red Hat is shipping 5.2 Linux so they
> think Debian is sorely out of date.

After they've been using linux a while, they will become better informed,
try debian for kicks, and stick with it.

Are you proposing we make debian's revision be =
$(current_redhat_revision).($debian_revision)? It nearly sounds that way. Or
do you prefer just 10$(current_debian_revision)

> Debian has no clear rule on what constitutes a major version ... it is
> subjective and arbitrary.

Of course it's subjective and arbitrary! A major release is just when you
want to say to the world, "look what we've done, it's so much better than
what we had before! Everyone, you have to upgrade and come try it!".

We don't need to write rules to govern this, it's very clear when we feel
that way.

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Joey Hess]

Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>   I think I am really grateful for not having people like that
>  trying Debian; it only increases the support headaches later on. Any
>  one who is, umm, challenged, enough to make any technical decision
>  based on version numbering would probably find Debian is not the
>  right distribution for them.

I have to wonder why such people bother with linux (2.0) when there are such
obviously numerically superior os's out there like, say, windows (95).

-- 
see shy jo


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null

Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
>>"George" == George Bonser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

 George> The problem with the current versioning system is that people
 George> look at Debian 2.0 and Red Hat 5.x and S.u.S.E 5.x and
 George> Slackware 3.x and figure Debian is seriously lagging when it
 George> is not.I have had people tell me that they are using Red Hat
 George> because it is at 5.2 while Debian is still only at 2.0. The
 George> perception is that Red Hat is better even though it is
 George> usually not as well tested. The current method might be
 George> better in a technical way but as far as public relations and
 George> such go, it really sucks.

I think I am really grateful for not having people like that
 trying Debian; it only increases the support headaches later on. Any
 one who is, umm, challenged, enough to make any technical decision
 based on version numbering would probably find Debian is not the
 right distribution for them.

manoj
-- 
 "It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try,
 but the result's the same." Mike Dennison
Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


--  
Unsubscribe?  mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null