Are bottled water companies service or product oriented? How about map makers (I don't know about you, but the state map is free in my state).
As much as these are service oriented companies, I think that Redhat Debian, Mandrake and other distrobutions are much like these companies.
They take things that are free, package them up in a convient form. They have the expensive tools to do things that not everybody can do (bottling, coders). And they provide a physical product that you can also get for almost free provided by a government sponsered (or inspired) delivery system.
I don't think he's completely hypocritical. There's never suggestion that the government should do things about this (other than take control of things the government pays for). Imagine what would happen if the world decided they didn't like he McDonaldization of the world. People can make this decision and make a differance. People just seem to think they are powerless by themselves.
The more we are told to:
Not talk to strangers.
Be afraid of strange thoughts.
Not explore differant beliefs.
Be afraid of the government. (news flash... people ARE the government)
They more they can get the public to fear each other, the more control they have.
People can choose to make a differance without legislation.
So with rpm 3 or 4 I can get the full functionality of apt-get (recommends, suggests.. and all?) Also, somewhere somebody should explain that these RPMS can work with alien.
Up2date free for one machine.. as apposed to apt-get free for 0 to infinity machines... that's a tough choice.
As for the 4500, I was refering to the fact that you said there were more than 4500 RPM's. Half of them don't install easily is my experience (thus my comment about being able to make crappy packages to inflate my count too).
Ease of use should be just as heavily weighted as a determinig factor, as this is what keeps or looses beginnning end-users.
But interestingly enough, the the patent was filed in May of 1999. In the US, you can get a patent for up to 1 year after the release of information, so they could have released all the way back to May 1998.
Wasn't CDDB published before this? Also, wasn't Windows CD player using this (they store it in an ini database I believe) before this?
It would be nice and ironic to use windows software to show prior art for a patent!:)
(usual disclaimer, this is just my understanding of things.. IANAL)
The thing I'd point out is that after seeing some of the intent it is clear that some of my questions are inflamitory (this can be said without even looking at the FAQ yet), having looked at the standard I found no statemnet of intent in the introduction, and found words that had heavy negative connotation in the document wrt packaging.
If I'm representative of folk that are not part of the project, but interested in the issues, it would behove you to at least provide a statment of intent. This would show us dimwits, who haven't been paying attention, that one part of the community is not trying to pull something over on the other side.
With the recent tactics of MicroSoft, trying to drive a line down the middle between the Free Software types and the Open Source types, it is probably very important to get the politics right, as well as the standard itself.
They should point this out in the document.
Understanding why a standard is the standard is almost as important as the standard itself.
(if I say standard one more time... DOH.. too late:) )
Wow.. thats interesting.. Personally, I had heard of Debian before I'd heard of RedHat (yes I was using back then.. yes I started with slackware).
As I've pointed out elsewhere, what I would propose is replacing "de Facto" with "prevalent" (as that would not have the "corrective" connotation). It would take care of this kinda "who's older and bigger" war.
Mention a few of the other packaging formats (including deb) and point out that making sure your rpm works with alien can indeed make you even MORE compatable with more distros. (after all, interoperability is what this is all about, isn't it?)
Does the redhat network feel threatened by things like apt-get? (honest question.. I said that I thought that above, but I'd be curious to know what an actual person from the company would say.)
Why did they ask for public comments if they didn't want conversation like this to happen? Even if it is from people who haven't looked at the problem for as long?
"Stop shoooting your mouth off" is the call of a person who either dosen't want to debate, or dosen't have the knowledge to do so. You seem knowledgable, so I'm going to assume (and hope) that you simply are tired of the debate. If this is true.. that's fine.. don't participate.
Debian, Libranet, Progeny, as well as two other distros that don't exist any more., use Debs and APT get, That's great, but OT. APT get isn't easier to use than RPMs, its easier to use than up2date, merely because there's no mirrors or vast quantities of unsupported packages. Which can be fixed pretty easily.
ok.. I'll accept some of thse facts
Mandrake and Connective also use APT, and Mandrake likely has more users than all the other distros mentioned here combined. But does it work with RPM v3? (the one used in the document)
Every Red Hat machine can update packages with automatic dependencies. As pointed out below, can you suggest or recommend? How? And do I have to pay to get this to happen with Redhat? (honest questions)
There is nothing specifically tying APT to Deb. However, there are far more than 4500 RPMs that are actively maintained, and far more users of RPM based distributions. Agreed, if somebody had another distrobution that could do all the package-updating that debian can, I would listen. (As for the 4500, I can make alot of crappy Packages to inflate my package count number too)
All this is beside the point, my point is that the phrase "de Facto" should be "most prevalent", and it would do them some good to mention "alien" and.deb, to give a full picture in the standard. Afterall, as they point out, there is no standard. Why not give a full picture of the situation instead of being one sided?
How would you feel if somebody said "Windows is the De Facto OS on the PC" and didn't mention anything about Linux/BSD? Especially in a document that was supposed to set a standard for the PC?
If this is actualy true, that RPM's are "in fact" the standard, why is this debate occuring?
Based on my experience, as I said above, RPM's USED to be alot more prevalent than they used to.
Maybe once upon a time they were the defacto standard, but alot of projects seem to be providing.debs now too.
Windows was once upon a time the "De Facto" operating system for PC's, I think you would agree that they are loosing this status, can't claim this completely any more. I believe RPM's fit in this category.
As for naming things after the distrobution, where did the name Redhat Package Manager come from?
Since it has been about a day, I've had some time to think about it. I guess I'll send in my comment asking that they, at least point out that if you make sure your RPM's works with alien it will help the.deb distro's, and it would cool some people's ire (including mine), if they would change the wording from "DeFacto", to "most prevalent".
Now I just have to go fill out the form.
BTW to whoever it was that was trying to dismiss these comments by pointing out that we hadn't been part of the whole debate and what not... Why did they ask for public comments if they didn't want this type of conversation to take place?
Focus on the solution, not the problem!
(but I'll still be surprized if a new packaging system comes out that really helps everybody)
While De Facto can mean unofficially, it meaning has a connotation that would imply that it is more factually corret. (for example a De Facto governemt might not correspond with the legal government, but is IN FACT where the power lies) Why do programmers always overlook the connotatino of words?
I imagine there are lots of non-RPM users who would like to dispute this "fact".
I'll give you the spec files, but that is an advantage for the author, how about for a user. Why should an end user care about this?
Yes apt-get has been made to work with rpm, but what distro has decided to set this up for their users to use it. Certainly not Redhat, they are trying to make money on the service (not that they shouldn't make money, I just quesiton if this is a good way).
I agree with your long run conclusion, and I agree that it will be hard. The most annoying thing about RPMS for me, is that it is ESPECIALLY hard to find RPM files to fill dependancies when you take the RPM from a third party source. (NOTE: RH network is not a solve for this... as it costs cash. Using an IS person to look things up is also a solution for this, but I didn't use it either as it also costs cash.)
Debian also may create some dependancy problems, but at least it tells me, so I don't spend forever looking for the file to make everything work.
I'm not against paying for things, but quesiton wheather this is a good way of going about things
It seems alot of companies are setting themselves up to use this method (ximian, nautilus, redhat, microsoft.) I am not against subscription service, but subscription updates, are questinoable as a method for making money, in my opinion.
I look forward to seeing what other services are started as subscription (but I only see this coming from ximian and nautilus, and I'm sure they will have differant systems, and not be on friendly terms.)
It would seem to me these companies would do better to offer subscription support and then use a common, open source, subscription service for added features (remote backup, remote CPU power).
The reason I see the open source business model (and the free software model) working is that 80% of most software projects spend 80% of their time in the support/update phase of a project.
IBM/Aurther Anderson/E&R/Deloit and Touch(or whatever it is) all know this. Micro$oft knows this, but wants to charge you incredible amounts of money for it.
I re-iterate, I do like redhat and some things they do. This rant makes me sound harder on them than I am.
I think that the whole packaging issue is quite a problem.
I would also like to point out that one of the earlier threads on the "de facto" status of RPM in the standard was marked as a "(-1 Troll)". If people aren't open to this kinda of discussion, progress won't be made, and we might as well go back to bowining to the great satan of software.
I personally think REDHAT has a large investment in the automatic updating through their "redhat netowrk" and apt-get very much threatens that cash source. I think that is one of the reasons that the.deb format is played down.
I agree, while they point out there is no standard, they do not back up their reasoning for using RPM as the supposedly "de facto" standard.
As RPM is the reason I originally left redhat to go to debian, I would suggest that they should either support their claim, or they shuold remove the suggestion.
In practicality, RPM used to be alot more dominant, I find that alot more projects are supporting.debs than used to.
I think Redhat is trying to promote its "redhat network" as sees Debian's apt-get as a significant problem.
I normally do not like to talk about distribution being against distribution, but in this case it has already been done and I am just pointing it out.
I use Redhat in some cases and appreciate all that they do. I just see this as obvious manipulation.
Has anybody considered contacting Noam Chomski?
As a linguist is he quite distinguished. I imagine he could give quite some explanation as to how much computer languages are speech.
Art is anything that you can get away with.
Computer programming is much like architecture.
There is an engineering side to it (otherwise buildings would be falling all around us), but it is also an art.
I would also point out that doing something clever is sometimes considered art, as well as the pleasing quality.
Consider some of M.C. Escher's works. While they do have some aesthetically pleasing qualities, what really makes them art, in my opinion, is the clever illusions and math behind the art.
If there was a way to attempt to drive the dagger down the center of the free software/open software community this is it: Focus on what makes the GPL zealots and the BSD zealots dislike each other, the supposedly "viral" property of the GPL.
Never mind the fact that both appear to support an ethic of re-contribution of code (GPL does this legalistically.. BSD does this informally).
Microsoft is beginning to learn how to fight a community. The first thing you do is divide them.
This is why non-violent movements don't work as well these days. PR firms and lobbying interests have been very good at keeping activists focused on their differences, rather than their common goals.
Please don't let this happen here. If this becomes a larger public issue, don't let this divide the community.
Alphie Kohn talks a bit about this in his book:
No Competition
He talks alot about the bad effects of competition in creative activity.
His simple sugestion is to switch competitive to co-operative.
Instead of playing musical chairs where 1 person is removed each time, play it where each time.. 1 chair is removed. Eventually you have a pile of giggling kids on 1 chair (make sure it's a STRONG chair) and they have to co-operate to get them all on there.
It's a non-direct way to get young kids to have to co-operate, without telling them "try to cooperate".
Slashdot Mirror
How many of us can we get to call their tech support asking how to get a login id that "dosen't use that insercure passport site".
It wouldn't get us anywhere, but it would be funny and annoying to microsoft!
Are bottled water companies service or product oriented? How about map makers (I don't know about you, but the state map is free in my state).
As much as these are service oriented companies, I think that Redhat Debian, Mandrake and other distrobutions are much like these companies.
They take things that are free, package them up in a convient form. They have the expensive tools to do things that not everybody can do (bottling, coders). And they provide a physical product that you can also get for almost free provided by a government sponsered (or inspired) delivery system.
I don't think he's completely hypocritical. There's never suggestion that the government should do things about this (other than take control of things the government pays for). Imagine what would happen if the world decided they didn't like he McDonaldization of the world. People can make this decision and make a differance. People just seem to think they are powerless by themselves.
The more we are told to:
Not talk to strangers.
Be afraid of strange thoughts.
Not explore differant beliefs.
Be afraid of the government. (news flash... people ARE the government)
They more they can get the public to fear each other, the more control they have.
People can choose to make a differance without legislation.
So with rpm 3 or 4 I can get the full functionality of apt-get (recommends, suggests.. and all?) Also, somewhere somebody should explain that these RPMS can work with alien.
Up2date free for one machine.. as apposed to apt-get free for 0 to infinity machines... that's a tough choice.
As for the 4500, I was refering to the fact that you said there were more than 4500 RPM's. Half of them don't install easily is my experience (thus my comment about being able to make crappy packages to inflate my count too).
Ease of use should be just as heavily weighted as a determinig factor, as this is what keeps or looses beginnning end-users.
Also (as I've pointed out elsewhere) dosen't windows CD-Player do this? I seem to remember it storing CD Information in a ini database.
It'd be nice and ironic to use a MicroSoft product as prior art to invalidate a patent.
Actually it is in regards to a patent violation.
:)
But interestingly enough, the the patent was filed in May of 1999. In the US, you can get a patent for up to 1 year after the release of information, so they could have released all the way back to May 1998.
Wasn't CDDB published before this? Also, wasn't Windows CD player using this (they store it in an ini database I believe) before this?
It would be nice and ironic to use windows software to show prior art for a patent!
(usual disclaimer, this is just my understanding of things.. IANAL)
I'll have to check that out.
The thing I'd point out is that after seeing some of the intent it is clear that some of my questions are inflamitory (this can be said without even looking at the FAQ yet), having looked at the standard I found no statemnet of intent in the introduction, and found words that had heavy negative connotation in the document wrt packaging.
If I'm representative of folk that are not part of the project, but interested in the issues, it would behove you to at least provide a statment of intent. This would show us dimwits, who haven't been paying attention, that one part of the community is not trying to pull something over on the other side.
With the recent tactics of MicroSoft, trying to drive a line down the middle between the Free Software types and the Open Source types, it is probably very important to get the politics right, as well as the standard itself.
Is a standard always set by the majority?
Is Windows the standard PC Operating System?
They should point this out in the document. :) )
Understanding why a standard is the standard is almost as important as the standard itself.
(if I say standard one more time... DOH.. too late
Wow.. thats interesting.. Personally, I had heard of Debian before I'd heard of RedHat (yes I was using back then.. yes I started with slackware).
As I've pointed out elsewhere, what I would propose is replacing "de Facto" with "prevalent" (as that would not have the "corrective" connotation). It would take care of this kinda "who's older and bigger" war.
Mention a few of the other packaging formats (including deb) and point out that making sure your rpm works with alien can indeed make you even MORE compatable with more distros. (after all, interoperability is what this is all about, isn't it?)
Does the redhat network feel threatened by things like apt-get? (honest question.. I said that I thought that above, but I'd be curious to know what an actual person from the company would say.)
Why did they ask for public comments if they didn't want conversation like this to happen? Even if it is from people who haven't looked at the problem for as long?
"Stop shoooting your mouth off" is the call of a person who either dosen't want to debate, or dosen't have the knowledge to do so. You seem knowledgable, so I'm going to assume (and hope) that you simply are tired of the debate. If this is true.. that's fine.. don't participate.
Debian, Libranet, Progeny, as well as two other distros that don't exist any more., use Debs and APT get, That's great, but OT. APT get isn't easier to use than RPMs, its easier to use than up2date, merely because there's no mirrors or vast quantities of unsupported packages. Which can be fixed pretty easily.
.deb, to give a full picture in the standard. Afterall, as they point out, there is no standard. Why not give a full picture of the situation instead of being one sided?
ok.. I'll accept some of thse facts
Mandrake and Connective also use APT, and Mandrake likely has more users than all the other distros mentioned here combined.
But does it work with RPM v3? (the one used in the document)
Every Red Hat machine can update packages with automatic dependencies.
As pointed out below, can you suggest or recommend? How? And do I have to pay to get this to happen with Redhat? (honest questions)
There is nothing specifically tying APT to Deb. However, there are far more than 4500 RPMs that are actively maintained, and far more users of RPM based distributions.
Agreed, if somebody had another distrobution that could do all the package-updating that debian can, I would listen. (As for the 4500, I can make alot of crappy Packages to inflate my package count number too)
All this is beside the point, my point is that the phrase "de Facto" should be "most prevalent", and it would do them some good to mention "alien" and
How would you feel if somebody said "Windows is the De Facto OS on the PC" and didn't mention anything about Linux/BSD? Especially in a document that was supposed to set a standard for the PC?
If this is actualy true, that RPM's are "in fact" the standard, why is this debate occuring?
.debs now too.
.deb distro's, and it would cool some people's ire (including mine), if they would change the wording from "DeFacto", to "most prevalent".
Based on my experience, as I said above, RPM's USED to be alot more prevalent than they used to.
Maybe once upon a time they were the defacto standard, but alot of projects seem to be providing
Windows was once upon a time the "De Facto" operating system for PC's, I think you would agree that they are loosing this status, can't claim this completely any more. I believe RPM's fit in this category.
As for naming things after the distrobution, where did the name Redhat Package Manager come from?
Since it has been about a day, I've had some time to think about it. I guess I'll send in my comment asking that they, at least point out that if you make sure your RPM's works with alien it will help the
Now I just have to go fill out the form.
BTW to whoever it was that was trying to dismiss these comments by pointing out that we hadn't been part of the whole debate and what not... Why did they ask for public comments if they didn't want this type of conversation to take place?
Focus on the solution, not the problem!
(but I'll still be surprized if a new packaging system comes out that really helps everybody)
He's not a dumbass,
De Facto means "in fact".
While De Facto can mean unofficially, it meaning has a connotation that would imply that it is more factually corret. (for example a De Facto governemt might not correspond with the legal government, but is IN FACT where the power lies) Why do programmers always overlook the connotatino of words?
I imagine there are lots of non-RPM users who would like to dispute this "fact".
yes...
de facto - In reality or fact; actually.
This debate wouldn't exist if it were in fact the standard.
I'll give you the spec files, but that is an advantage for the author, how about for a user. Why should an end user care about this?
Yes apt-get has been made to work with rpm, but what distro has decided to set this up for their users to use it. Certainly not Redhat, they are trying to make money on the service (not that they shouldn't make money, I just quesiton if this is a good way).
I agree with your long run conclusion, and I agree that it will be hard. The most annoying thing about RPMS for me, is that it is ESPECIALLY hard to find RPM files to fill dependancies when you take the RPM from a third party source. (NOTE: RH network is not a solve for this... as it costs cash. Using an IS person to look things up is also a solution for this, but I didn't use it either as it also costs cash.)
Debian also may create some dependancy problems, but at least it tells me, so I don't spend forever looking for the file to make everything work.
I'm not against paying for things, but quesiton wheather this is a good way of going about things
It seems alot of companies are setting themselves up to use this method (ximian, nautilus, redhat, microsoft.) I am not against subscription service, but subscription updates, are questinoable as a method for making money, in my opinion.
I look forward to seeing what other services are started as subscription (but I only see this coming from ximian and nautilus, and I'm sure they will have differant systems, and not be on friendly terms.)
It would seem to me these companies would do better to offer subscription support and then use a common, open source, subscription service for added features (remote backup, remote CPU power).
The reason I see the open source business model (and the free software model) working is that 80% of most software projects spend 80% of their time in the support/update phase of a project.
IBM/Aurther Anderson/E&R/Deloit and Touch(or whatever it is) all know this. Micro$oft knows this, but wants to charge you incredible amounts of money for it.
I re-iterate, I do like redhat and some things they do. This rant makes me sound harder on them than I am.
same question as above.
What major distrobution supports this?
And what major distrobution supports this?
Debian definately is the only one with FREE automatic upgrading.
I think that the whole packaging issue is quite a problem.
.deb format is played down.
I would also like to point out that one of the earlier threads on the "de facto" status of RPM in the standard was marked as a "(-1 Troll)". If people aren't open to this kinda of discussion, progress won't be made, and we might as well go back to bowining to the great satan of software.
I personally think REDHAT has a large investment in the automatic updating through their "redhat netowrk" and apt-get very much threatens that cash source. I think that is one of the reasons that the
I agree, while they point out there is no standard, they do not back up their reasoning for using RPM as the supposedly "de facto" standard.
.debs than used to.
As RPM is the reason I originally left redhat to go to debian, I would suggest that they should either support their claim, or they shuold remove the suggestion.
In practicality, RPM used to be alot more dominant, I find that alot more projects are supporting
I think Redhat is trying to promote its "redhat network" as sees Debian's apt-get as a significant problem.
I normally do not like to talk about distribution being against distribution, but in this case it has already been done and I am just pointing it out.
I use Redhat in some cases and appreciate all that they do. I just see this as obvious manipulation.
Has anybody considered contacting Noam Chomski?
As a linguist is he quite distinguished. I imagine he could give quite some explanation as to how much computer languages are speech.
Art is anything that you can get away with.
Computer programming is much like architecture.
There is an engineering side to it (otherwise buildings would be falling all around us), but it is also an art.
I would also point out that doing something clever is sometimes considered art, as well as the pleasing quality.
Consider some of M.C. Escher's works. While they do have some aesthetically pleasing qualities, what really makes them art, in my opinion, is the clever illusions and math behind the art.
This is how computer science is.
If there was a way to attempt to drive the dagger down the center of the free software/open software community this is it: Focus on what makes the GPL zealots and the BSD zealots dislike each other, the supposedly "viral" property of the GPL.
Never mind the fact that both appear to support an ethic of re-contribution of code (GPL does this legalistically.. BSD does this informally).
Microsoft is beginning to learn how to fight a community. The first thing you do is divide them.
This is why non-violent movements don't work as well these days. PR firms and lobbying interests have been very good at keeping activists focused on their differences, rather than their common goals.
Please don't let this happen here. If this becomes a larger public issue, don't let this divide the community.
Alphie Kohn talks a bit about this in his book:
No Competition
He talks alot about the bad effects of competition in creative activity.
His simple sugestion is to switch competitive to co-operative.
Instead of playing musical chairs where 1 person is removed each time, play it where each time.. 1 chair is removed. Eventually you have a pile of giggling kids on 1 chair (make sure it's a STRONG chair) and they have to co-operate to get them all on there.
It's a non-direct way to get young kids to have to co-operate, without telling them "try to cooperate".
I hearby offer my genes as evidence of prior art.
I'm red-green (how many colourblind readers of slashdot are there?)