Greg Mildenhall <greg@networx.net.au>:
: Is it? The same package ought to work on all of them, and if it doesn't,
: you _should_ (you won't always) be able to tell from the .deb or .rpm
: extension, not from the name of the package.
: The main reason for this? They all use glibc2.
It would appear to me that you haven't spent any time trying to deploy
a package on the various Linux systems. Suse doesn't use glibc yet,
but they are RPM based. Furthermore, their init layout is different
than RedHat's layout (and that's just where the problems start).
: > But to take {redhat,suse,slackware,debian} and call them all gnu is
: > (a) incorrect,
: It is? Which one of these does not use GNU-owned software for most of it's
: basic userspace components? GNU certainly does not have a monopoly on
: such, but it certainly is responsible for more than any of the
: distributions. It seems the best approximation to correctness.
Don't be silly. Approximation != correct. To call it GNU is not correct
unless it is 100% GNU. And it isn't even close. Go do a wc on the X11
tree some day. You don't see Gettys in here arguing that it should be
called X11-Linux, now do you?
: > (b) somewhat annoying,
: To you. To others it's annoying the other way. Such is life.
Yes, but I try and ship software that runs on all platforms. Unless you
are trying to do the same thing, your opinion isn't as important as
mine because you are just voicing a silly opinion for no technical or
business reason.
: > (c) loses important information.
: If the software won't run on all platforms that could be called
: i386-glibc-linux, then the fault lies in the software.
: If it is inherently distro-specific, then you don't need to have the
: platform as part of the name.
Once again you are proving that you haven't tried to do what you are
telling other people is trivial. Please consider that the point of
config.guess is to give installation scripts some useful information
and Stallman isn't helping one bit. He's behaving like a two year old
instead.
: Anyone that wants to debate the gnomenclature issue, should be aware
: that it is going to take an extended discussion that you should _not_
: invite here.
If you really believed that, you wouldn't have posted in the first place.
: GNU own a very small proportion of the code we run, on the whole, but what
: they do own comprises a great many of the most fundamental and universal
: components of a system.
Such as? The only substantial chunk is gcc and that isn't part of the
operating system.
: When you are considering a "platform" for porting purposes or similar,
: what matters most (after the CPU) is the standard library. If you port to
: glibc, you can create a single i386 binary that can run on Linux, FreeBSD
: and Hurd, but _won't_ run on libc5-based Linux.
Yeah, right. Have you actually tried this for any real application?
Sure, it's true for simple stuff but it is far from true for anything
real.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/