Interview with Fink's Project Leader

Gentu writes "There is a interesting interview over at OSNews with Fink's project leader, Max Horn. They discuss Fink's relationship with Apple, integration of their Unix/Linux ports to Mac OS X via Debian's packaging solution, ease of use on installation of the .deb packages, AltiVec optimizations and more."

Comments

Re:Fink is a problem

[freedom_leffo]

Look, I believe you got this all wrong. And tell me again WHY Fink is a problem? Because you think the Fink-developers should spend their time improving Darwin?

And why on earth do you say that the Fink-developers wouldn't like Apple? Think about it - by making all those applications available to the Mac OS X users they're actually helping Apple. What about Apple's X11 port? Users running X11 on Mac OS X heavily rely on Fink for their software.

Why should the Fink-developers run PCs instead of Macs? Why should they abandon the opportunity to run their favourite X11 applications on top of a killer OS? (and not only X11 apps but all the other great software the Fink-developers have made available)

You don't make sense.

Re:Fink is a problem

[Llywelyn]

"Do a search for the bugs Apple has introduced to IPSec and GCC."

No need, I am dealing with a bug in Apple's gcc3.1 as we speak.

In response I use Apple's gcc for things where the bugs do not exist and gcc3.3 (compiled from cvs) for times when they do. A good craftsman never blames his tools, but always tries to make sure that his tools are up to his own specification.

Apple did introduce a few bugs, they also removed a few. It's the way it goes.

"Where on the Jaguar disc can I find XFee86?""

What you are doing here is called "not reading what I wrote".

"I can safely say they ARE trying to do everything for me and let's try an analogy:"

Not at all. Not all of their machines ship with AppleWorks, for instance (mine didn't), QuickBooks is not in-house by any means, and they are (or at least were) offering a steeply discounted version of Microsoft Office.

They are not trying to do a lot of things for me. I have to purchase Keynote separately, download TeTeX on my own, &c. Considering how small of a percentage of users ever write anything in LaTeX or see LaTeX code...

"Why can't Apple's out-of-the-box Unix be as compelling to RedHat users as say, their Final Cut Pro is to Avid users?"

This would be called a "false analogy".

"I don't want to get into 'my Apple loyalty is bigger than yours' but it is my 13-year admiration of their complete product line"

I've been using macs since 1984 and have owned or had as family computers over 10 macs (Original, Plus, SE, LC, Centris 650, 7100, G3MT, iMac, iBook, and a 12" PowerBook). I used to subscribe to the MacMarines mailing list and was (and still am) a Mac Evangelist.

I also have done a lot of work with Linux and ran my systems in dual boot (with LinuxPPC or MkLinux, depending on the system) until the release of MacOS X 10.1.

Yes, I also ran MacOS X 10.0 and even the MacOS X 10.0 Public Beta.

"ot shipping with a working package manager "

Is it annoying? Sure. Can it be worked around? Easily and through commonly available (and easily installable) means. Therefore I do not complain.

"explain how I perform the equivalent of 'rpm -e apache' on a freshly-installed Mac OS X box?"

1) Apache comes preinstalled.

2) Try fink.sourceforge.net

3) Once again, this is called "not reading what I wrote"

"Kudos to Fink and and GNU/Darwin to finding workarounds to this situation."

I don't consider it "a workaround," I consider it "adding useful functionality to a system."

There is a *big* difference between those two.

". I simply don't understand why it is a problem in the first place."

Neither do I (though I have a few guesses involving Apple's tech support getting swamped with phone calls from people trying to install Unix software and thinking that Apple supported it since they were using an Apple utility), however, considering we are on 10.2, and are about to go to 10.3, Apple mentions Fink on their website, and now Apple has a publically available X11 implementation, why are you still up in arms?

"That was on Mac OS X 1.0 install disc 3?"

Once again, "not reading what I wrote."

I don't care whether it was on the 10.0 install disc. I doubt I could *find* my copy of the 10.0 install disc if I went looking for it.

Also, when it is readily available via the internet or through CDs, why is it a problem if it doesn't ship with it? Oh boo hoo, it takes that much longer to get working?

"These guys seem to: www.macdevcenter.com Do you put O'Reilly and Associates in the same Trolling Idiot category as you put me?"

I'm going to venture a guess that they would be chugging along just fine if XonX were the only implementation of XFree86 involved on the Mac and we all were using OrobusOSX.

They are also not "traditional workstation users" by any stretch of the imagination, which is what you claimed. Nor do they seem to be whining, like what yo

GNU/DARWIN like drinking from a spittoon.

[goombah99]

Having played with GNU/Darwin and with fink, I at first came to view GNU/Darwin as an unhealthy expeiment since it was a threat to fink and OSX. Now that fink has grown to be a superior set of app, hopefully GNU/Darwin willbe marginalized, and perhaps start competing with its more apt target Yellodog.

Here's my own opinion on what distingusihed gnu darwin from fink. While Gnu/darwin portrays it self as a GNU extension for OSX it really wants to mostly replace the core functions of the command line interface. FOr example, when you install it it overwrites make, tar and other key programs with its own versions. These can be fixed by fiddling with links and such but its a nightmare when all of a sudden your make files (like all of fink) break.

in contrast fink, in the apple manner, installs it self in its own files system where it can easilty be separate from the apple core system. It uses the apple tools and when it cant installs its own in its own filesystem not in /bin. Its easy to unistall or re-install. it may get broken by a apple upgrade but it wont break the OS. Gnu/darwin can break the OS since it write to /bin and /etc.

Finally installing gnu/darwin was like drinking from a spittoon, to install just a tiny bit you had to take a big slug of things you did not expect to get sprayed all over your /bin directory. Fink comes in fairly small chunks.

my own feeling from reading he gnu/darwin web pages is that it was a stalking horse to completely replace the OS.

the problem I had was that at first most of the major scientific apps were ported to gnudarwin and not to fink. indeed this is still true. But each month I see more of these apps joining fink.

basically gnu darwin exemplifies everything I hate about linux and its too complicated way of installing and managing packages. Fink is a nice clean break and done right.