Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Interview With Lead Yoper Linux Developer

Posted by timothy on from the factionalism dept.

Bongoots writes "Andy Kissner from Linuxforums.org has just posted this: 'In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of hype and controversy surrounding Yoper, ranging from insults to ruthless Gentoo comparisons. I recently sat down with Andreas Girardet, who is a key developer for Yoper, to dispell all the rumors and discuss the direction in which the Yoper project is headed.' Click here to read the rest of the interview."

5 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. More pointless branching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The phrase "united front" mean anything to the linux community?

    1. Re:More pointless branching by Platinum+Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The phrase "united front" mean anything to the linux community?

      Maybe not, but my hackles tend to go up when I hear terms like "unity" and "united front" tossed around, perhaps because they tend to be used by Troktskyites and other vanguardists wanting everyone to follow their way, and only their way.

      Yes, I hang around in some fringe circles. Hang around for a moment, this is going somewhere.

      An anarchist would be more concerned with solidarity between groups that share common goals--you can have tens, even thousands of different projects and groups, but they work best when sharing ideas and supporting each other instead of each group demanding that everyone else follow behind their glorious leadership.

      How might this esoteric political argument apply to software?

      I cringe whenever I hear about "the next killer distro that will take over" or silly distro holy wars over Debian vs. Gentoo vs. Mandrake vs. Fedora as "the desktop distro." OTOH, cooperative efforts like freedesktop.org, the Linux Standards Base, and some of the efforts to bridge the KDE and GNOME desktops with common protocols make me smile. In situations like these, software "solidarity" can allow for numerous distributions aimed at different groups of people to work well together because they share common protocols and technologies, interchangeable stuff when possible.

      Mind you, this submission bugged the crap out of me, precisely because the submitter came across in a combative, pseudo-underdog fashion that seems intended to bleed mindshare from other distributions in favour of one group's (or individual's) ego, rather than trying to just make a better collection of software or doing one thing better so that others can learn and benefit.

      Bah, I'm exhausted, and I'm not sure this made much sense, but there you have it--I think what the real problem facing the FOSS community is false unity versus real solidarity.

      --

      Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
  2. Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by dan_sdot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, if all the people who demanded an easy to use yet just as powerful linux distro while slagging off the rest as being too hard/a big pain in the arse actually sat down and tried to build what they wanted, we could have it by now.
    I don't think that he was saying this "this distro sucks."
    I think was he was saying was: "Who gives a crap?"
    So somebody created a new distro, wow, thats special. And what does this have to offer? Exactly what he was saying, that it super 1337. These stories come out every so often, and the /. hive mind pays the distro homage, but the thing doesn't really offer what linux really needs.
  3. What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yoper sounds neat; and to be honest, all the modern Linux distros I've tried (Mandrake, Suse, Knoppix) work out of the box as long as you're content to use whatever is included in the initial installation.

    However, as a desktop OS, there are three things every user needs that no distro provides yet:

    1. Easy installation of any Linux software. Don't give me RPM-hell, dependency hell, command-line compiling, proprietary click-n-run depositories, or any other excuses. Only the Mac does it right: you drag the icon to your Applications folder. Voilà. The first distro to accomplish this will be king.

    2. Simple, centralized, user-friendly control panels for *everything*, with smart defaults. Why does Mandrake, arguably the most desktop-ready distro, still have printer settings in PrinterDrake, printer settings in the KDE control center, and another panel full of printer settings in the KDE menu?

    3. Better support for basic peripherals, like printers and scanners. It's tough shopping for printers at Staples when you know that nothing on the shelf is likely to work.

    I'm not saying I have the solutions, but these are major problems that all regular computer users have when grappling with Linux.

  4. Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by slug359 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A virus that spreads like like msblaster did is very easily possible, if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines, such as OpenSSH (please don't reply with stuff about openssh running as a user with no access to anywhere on some distros, it can somewhere, or home distros not having openssh, it's an example). You don't need root to connect to an IRC server, and listen for commands to fire packets at people.

    Also you mention email worms/trojans, why do you need to be root to start a program that emails everyone in your evolution/kmail/syphleed address books?
    All it needs is the ability to connect outwards on port 25 and read your address book, like your email client running as your user does.
    It could even drop a DDOS zombie into your home directory that attacks people with your ping binary (forked off multiple times).
    Additionally it it could add itself into your bash_profile/x startup file so it starts when you logon.

    Yes, it couldn't affect other users on the local machine, but it would still spread and affect the user that opened it, just like running an email virus on Windows as a restricted user would.