On Monday 13 March 2006 13:59, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Maybe someday a distribution will figure out that users really
> want a stable OS along with current apps instead of bundling
> new device drivers along with version-level desktop app
> updates. Until then, or at least until packaging lets you
> install new/expermental versions alongside your well-tested
> working application, people will continue to do strange and
> desperate things...
Let me make a minor edit to this well-thought-out paragraph, Les. The change
is from 'distribution' to 'upstream open-source developers who have a NIH
attitude and who insist on their required version of any given library as
being The Only Acceptable Version'. Typically the distribution has very
little control on what the upstream requires (this isn't strictly true for
Red Hat or Novell, since they employee a good sized percentage of upstream
developers.
Thus the need to keep so many versions of, say, GTK or OpenSSL in the
distribution. It goes back to the upstream's willingness to work with older
versions of libraries. And, in this case, I'm not referring to Red Hat as
the upstream; I referring to MySQL AB, the PostgreSQL Global Development
Group, the KDE project, the GCC and GLIBC developers, the Linux developers,
etc.
--
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC 28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu
