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Gentoo, Fink, and DarwinPorts Join Forces
Mr. Quick writes "From Metapkg, "In order to better provide freely-available software to users of Mac OS X and Darwin, we Fink, Gentoo, and DarwinPorts commit ourselves to work together." A unified front for free software on Mac OS X is something that was needed."
What will this new collaboration be called?
DarFinkGen?
FinkTooWin?
Firebird?
So while this is really cool, how is it going to work out?
To wit: thought maybe i'm on crack, it SEEMS like each of the three-- while offering basically the same interface to the same service-- were pegged to different codebases, and taking packages from different sources. Fink to debian, gentoo to gentoo and ports to bsd.
Is this the case? And which source (debian/gentoo/bsd) will the collaboration generally follow?
Since they ported X11 to Mac OS X on their own it would be kinda useful to have them in the same boat. Dont you think?
I think most people don't understand how unique this initiative is. Most of the times open source projects don't really notice eachother and when they do, they just start a flamewar about who's best and who stole feature from who.
It's good too see there are some developers out there with organizational talents who are willing to communicate with other projects in order to speed up development time and create a better product.
NetBSD's pkgsrc works very well for me on OSX. I haven't tried portage or darwin ports, but fink seemed a little strange....almost but not quite debian goodness.
Still, I think all this work is kind of weird. I can see the porting effort for things like the text-based things (emacs!) and the very large projects (OO.o!)....but running standard unix apps under X on top of OSX doesn't take advantage of OSX's strong points. For all the hype, this could be happening with people on cygwin....
Kudos to the GNUMail.app people, of showing what can be done.
Yes indeed. Get them all together. Package them all the same. Get rid of choice, it is overrated anyway. That is the only way to get Linux to be just like Windows, and the OSI, FSF et al to be like just like MS.
Fink has always provided a user-friendly approach to installing ports that appeals to even sub power-users. Darwin ports brings to the table the experience behind the BSD ports system as well as the leadership of Apple. Gentoo brings some hardcore technical muscle. They all bring different strengths to the table, so I think they'll find a way to make it great.
These group's aren't merging into one project: they're still making three products, but will be working together to ensure there is sharing of work and no duplication of effort. This is indeed different from most OSS projects where the two competitiors come to hate each other for some reason. Another groundbreaking thought from their mission statement: "Non-advocacy: Our common goal is simply to provide software for people who choose to use Mac OS X & Darwin, not to promote or advocate any particular operating system." OSS with non-advocacy! Imagine how much more acceptance open-source software might get if everyone focused on telling people how the development model could produce great software at no cost to the user instead of droning on about how it is immoral for programmers to serve as wage-labor.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
So I welcome this move towards a unified ports system for Darwin, it was definitely needed.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
Gentoo, Fink, and DarwinPorts alone are not enough to conquer evil. But with their forces combined, they form *dramatic pause* the league of super best friends.
Go here for more info. Droooooooooooooool. ;-)
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
What choices would you be losing if that happened? They same software would still be available, and you would still beable to do the same thing with it, e.g. install it from packages, install from source packages, roll your own from a tar ball.
/etc/apache /etc/httpd /var/www/conf or somewhere else? etc etc
The only thing that I can see that you'd lose is the multitude of different ways things can be configured. e.g. is the httpd.conf in
Where is the choice between GNOME and KDE when you have to have both installed anyway to beable to use all the decent apps avilable to Linux?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
There are pros & cons to this.
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
Look at the drastic improvements MS IE received while Netscape was still a strong contender. Then look at the improvements after IE got 90%+ marketshare. Some would argue that there isn't much to add to a browser but a look at the innovations in Opera, Mozilla Firebird and Safari.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
My apologies if such a GUI/UI standard exists--I simply don't see it being promoted or used in X apps I've tried--and it was just an example.
My thoughts exactly... I think this is one of the reasons the 3 BSD's are able to accomplish so much despite having a fraction of the developer resources of the Linux community. Although each project is developed independently according to their respective goals, they share their solutions that the others are free to adopt or improve upon.
http://astutehosting.com/
There is no need to make a complex metapackage system.
I find Gentoo's python based system way overly complex and buggy. You need to emerge rsync quite a few times during a new install to ensure you are using the latest version of portage.
The FreeBSD ports system on the other hand are just simple tcsh scripts. Under
If any of you reading this use FreeBSD 5.x go to
WHen you do a "make install clean" the port scripts just use standard ftp and http sites in the makefile to download the apps. Nothing complex and its alot easier to use.
I can not speak of fink because I have never used it.
Simple shell scripting can get rid of alot of complexity.
http://saveie6.com/
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
The problem is, as you point out later, inconsistancy. You can't troubleshoot Linux nearly as easily, because you have to say 'Ok, go to the menu with the foot on it, and choose- what? Oh, ok, the menu with the K on it. And then go to, uhh.. let me see, I only ever use Gnome.' Having to know twice as much can interfere ver much with helping someone.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
As I recall, they agreed to work together on this a while ago. I could be wrong, but it's in the slashdot archives I'm sure.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
Microsoft did a horrible job with their GUI. The standards you mention (File, edit, help) have been around since the early Mac days, and are in a slew of DOS programs too. Microsoft, however, made a lot of very bad design decisions - such as using 'Yes/No/Cancel' or 'OK/Cancel' dialogs whenever a choice needs to be made, instead of properly labelling the buttons with exactly what they do.
They also don't stress the importance of making one's program follow the same pattern as the 'standard'. Most programs, when you try to close them, have a 'Save? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog, but enough of them have an 'Abandon changes? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog to make life frustrating for anyone who deals with a wide variety of programs. If you want real UI guidelines, check out the latest ones from Apple. It's a near-religious text.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
Linux environment programmers (KDE, GNOME, etc) have three main options. If they copy the Windows behaviour, it'll be familiar to Windows users, but the Windows behaviour makes little sense in a lot of circumstances (See above)
If they (properly) copy the MacOS behaviour, they will have a system that feels and works properly even to a completely new user, but most people consider it 'wrong' because it's not what they're used to. As such, it will probably never be adopted, since a lot of people refuse to give it a chance.
If they make their own guidelines, then obviously, they'll have the freedom to make their own standards, which they can tailor to suit their programs. This is bad, but it's what will happen. As evidenced by Sun's usability study, programmers design interfaces for themselves and others, but don't tend to consider what other people are used to or will find intuitive - well, how would they know? It makes sense to the programmers. A lot of programmers consider the UI an 'interface to the user for the code' - a way for the code to get itself run - rather than 'an interface for the user to the code' - a way for the user to make the code do what they want.
What the GNOME/KDE projects need are clear heirarchies, and priorities. Unfortunately, GTK is such a rabid bitch to code in (compare to Cocoa) and not many programs use Glade, so UI designers have the harsh end of the stick. I also can't help but feel there's a feeling with GNOME programmers that only 'real programming' is beneficial - documentation and UI design can be 'good enough' (docs and UI can never be 'good enough'). If it's there i
... Three packages for the Mac users under the sun ...
And one metapackage to find them, and in the darkness bind them. In the land of shell, where the shadows lie.
each group simply provides their own set of software for installing and maintaining the ported software on your OS X system. They get to share & distribute the hard work of actually porting the packages. Then everyone benefits, regardless of which package manager you choose.