[gnu-sol-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Open Source software and OpenSolaris. What is the deal?

[Joseph Kowalski]

Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> Joseph Kowalski wrote:
>> I think the concept of CCD is simply bad.  We should not be providing
>> a recompilation and packaging service. We should be providing assistance
>> to the ultimate code maintainers to provide Solaris "packages" just 
>> like they
>> provide RPMs (or whatever) for Linux.
>
> Wearing my hat as a code maintainer for one of the major open source
> upstream communities (X.Org), we provide the same set of packages for
> all OS'es - those are source tarballs only.    We don't provide RPM's,
> debs, gentoo ebuilds, SVR4 packages, or any sort of binaries - there
> are simply too many different versions of different distros, with
> different package systems, dependencies, supported platforms, to even
> begin.   The only thing we (or many other upstreams) can support is
> source release, and expecting each distro to provide it's own packages.
> We don't have a warehouse to fill with the hundreds of machines 
> necessary,
> nor do we have the number of volunteers necessary, to provide packages
> for any OS.
>
> I just don't see trying to push package building upstream as a viable
> solution at all.
>
Uh, isn't X.org the exception rather than the rule?

If I have this backwards (and most communities only provide source), then
my apologies to all.

I have noted that few provide "dpkg" format.  You need to go to Debian or
Ubuntu to get that.  Could it be that RPM just occupies a special, 
historical
nitche?

- jek3