[indiana-discuss] Distro proliferation and causes of incompatibility (Was: Name of Distro?)

[Peter Tribble]

On 6/22/07, Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/06/07, BVK Chaitanya <bayapuneni_chaitanya at symantec.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ian Murdock <Ian.Murdock at Sun.COM> writes:
> >
> > > Are Solaris Express and Nexenta compatible today? I.e., can you build
> > > a package on Solaris Express and install it on Nexenta and vice versa
> > > without any concern about whether something might break? -ian

The one time I tried this, it failed. Which was a bit of a downer.

> > Can you tell us how Indiana will solve it anyway?
>
> In theory, by having a reference platform. But that doesn't actually
> solve the problem. People can always create incompatible
> distributions.

They can. Nothing is ever going to prevent those who want to be
incompatible from being so.

However, the trick is to make it easier to be compatible than not.
And that's where a base distribution that can be used as a foundation
by others will help - by reusing the bits, you get compatibility for free.
Force people to build completely independent distributions from scratch,
and divergence will happen, because minor differences will start to
creep in.

-- 
-Peter Tribble
http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/