21 Jan
2014
21 Jan
'14
1:40 p.m.
On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 05:55:04AM +0000, Filipe Coelho wrote:
I think we should stop assuming releasing source code
is enough.
Enough for what ? Users who don't want to install from source
want packages made for the package manager of their distro,
which will take care of dependencies etc. You can't expcect a
developer to provide such packages for each and every distro.
I don't even provide them for the distro I use myself.
[GNU/] Linux is getting more user friendly,
Depends very much on what you understand by 'user friendly'.
and most users are not able to compile software,
They can learn to do it. It's not rocket science.
plus some distributions make it specially hard
(debian, ubuntu,
fedora, opensuse) by having the libs installed but not the headers.
They all provide 'devel' packages as well. Why they split things
up is another question, IMHO it's a silly thing to do. Usually
the space taken by the headers is small fraction of the total.
Releasing software on windows or mac, even
open-source, *always*
comes in a binary, and most users come from there.
And why do they want to change ? To get 'free as in beer' software ?
Then they should accept that this comes at a price: a small effort
from their side.
Now, I have a "toolchain" repository for
ubuntu 10.04 with gcc4.8,
python3+qt4 and a bunch of other useful stuff.
Unless that toolchain can magically create packages for all major
distros (and I'm pretty sure it can't do that), what's the point ?
Ciao,
--
FA
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)