On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 07:04:35AM -0800, Richard Crawford wrote: > At the risk of sounding even more like flame fodder, most projects make > their products available in several different formats. RPM is but one, > and from what I can tell, it is not always the best. He goes on to point out that you can Use The Source, Luke; and that the maintainers are usually (actually, almost always) ahead of RH, anyway. All true; but it beggars the question, "Then, why RedHat?". I've done Unix development--kernel work at BTL, at the start--since 1980. I've contributed to GNU, written a mountain of code--what, I don't want to write YADB? I've already written 3 or 4 proprietary databases packages, for instance, worked on a dozen more, including virtually every commercially available database--many lost in the mists of time--and so on. I've NO *problem* downloading and building packages. That's not why I bought RedHat. I bought RH because of the "I don't want to write another OS/utility/whatever" syndrome. They went to the trouble of building, patching, and integrating all of the software. I CAN do it; I HAVE DONE it. But I have only specific details, nothing new in kind, to learn by having to do it again. I wanted RH to provide a working platform so I can get OTHER work done. Now, in fact, building the packages from the maintainer's source will result in real problems when you try to update an installed RPM. And you probably can't just remove the RPM if the package has any significant dependencies... So you really come down to: 1. Pay for the full-bore system. Live in RPM harmony. All is RedHat supported, life is good, the bills are higher. 2. Pay for the professional workstation. Add what you can, from self-built and configured sources. Maybe RPM harmony, maybe not; servers/packages/etc. you add, even from RH SRPMs, are unsupported except by you. You decide if the initial consistency is worth the cost of RHPW. 3. Leave RedHat and try to find someone else who does it the way you want to. No hard feelings. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz@xxxxxxxxxx -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
