Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base

[Dan Armak <ermak@netvision.net.il>]

On Monday 09 July 2001 19:43, you wrote:
> I was reading in LinuxToday some comments about the LSB and just about
> everyone is singing praises to it.
>
> You may get the specs at
>
> http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/
>
> There are a couple of topics there that would be of concern for Gentoo. One
> is the topic of packaging. Packaging addresses binaries and states that RPM
> is to be supported. The other is system Init.
>
> The pages in the specs (PDF format) are not numbered. The section on
> packaging start in page 229 (chapter 13) and the one on system init on page
> 352 (Chapter 18). I got there using the thumbnails. This is a long
> document, almost 400 pages.
>
>
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With all due respect to LSB, I really don't think RPM is a Good Thing. At 
all. Actually RPM as it exists now doesn't provide the features needed to use 
it everywhere. Not only Gentoo but Slackware, Debian, etc.... don't support 
RPM - at least not as their main, preferred way of packaging.

The whole point of having many contending distros around is for differences - 
customization being an issue.

The LSB wants things to be _standard_. This means programs working 
out-of-the-box. In this case, distributed packages working on all 
distributions.

But there's already one such method that always works - configure; make; make 
install. If LSB says RPMs are better than that, it discourages practicing 
what is the heart of Portage - automatized downloading, compiling & 
installing. The LSB should push for standardized results, not for a standard 
way of achieving them.

Whoever wants a pre-compiled package will eventually be able to get it via 
Portage which already supports binary packages. Whoever gets a package from 
its home site as source is thus encouraged to write an ebuild for it and give 
back to the community. RPM availability would desatroy that - Portage and 
emerge would simply become much less important. 

Of course, choice is important. So whoever thinks RPMs are good for Gentoo 
can go ahead and modify Portage/emerge to support them. But people who still 
think actually compiling a package with the correct optimizations for you CPU 
is best <gasp> shouldn't be branded non-standard. (Or non-mainstream <gasp>).

Well, that's my opinion, for what it's worth. (phew!)

Dan Armak