[H-GEN] GCC/G++ MANUAL

[Anthony Towns]

On Tue, Aug 11, 1998 at 04:15:50PM +1000, Frank Brand wrote:
> Martin Pool wrote:

[0]

> > > the commercial interests so heavily now intertwined with Linux, could
> > > well drive Linux in a direction that not all the old hackers might like.
> > I wonder if Debian would go in the same direction?  They seem
> > concerned by user-friendliness, but don't (?) have a commercial
> > interest in the mass-market.

I can't see it happening.

For a start, most of the developers seem to be old hackers, anyway, and
those who aren't tend to get... encouraged to implement their dreams in
a way that doesn't lose the neat things that the old hackers liked in
the first place.

The usual assumption is: make sure it works exactly how an experienced
Linux admin would want it too ideally -- modulo things like typing
"dpkg" instead of "rpm", and looking in "/etc/init.d" instead of
"/etc/rc.d/init.d", for example.

Things that don't really make a difference on that score -- like making
dpkg go as fast as rpm does, are more or less left on the backburner.
While it might be nicer if it were fixed, and it makes a difference if
you're impatient, or doing your first install, or not getting paid by
the hour or whatever -- it doesn't make admining the system fundamentally
easier: so work on things that *do* first.

Which is why things like "dselect" and "apt" are integral parts of the
system, rather than things like "redneck".
 
> Remains to be seen but they are in the same market and have to compete
> or do they have to compete?

The only reason to compete is if losing is unacceptable -- you don't win
you don't get paid, you don't buy food, you starve, say.

With free software, if Debian doesn't "win", then Red Hat does and you
use that instead. Big deal. You've got the source. You'll have to forget
how Debian did things, and work out how Red Hat does instead, but, well,
big deal.

And of course, there's x million computers in the world. They don't all
have to run one O/S, one distribution, or even one kernel, MS philosophy
and Java hype notwithstanding.

[1]

Cheers,
aj

[0] ObProcmail:

	:0 c
	* From: Martin Pool
	* X-loop: *\/.*@lists.humbug.org.au
	| (sed 's/^/> /'; echo "me too") | reply2mail -l -

    reply2mail(1) is left as an exercise for the interested reader.

[1] There are reasons for compatability, of course -- transferring data
    files is good, and transferring executables sometimes often is too.
    Things like the Linux Standard Base [2] should help this as far as
    distribution differences and commercial programs are concerned.

[2] Which may or may not have died recently. At the very least Red Hat
    and Debian are working out how to resolve some of their differences
    for third parties.

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

Remember to breathe.
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