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

[Eric Boutilier]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Peter Tribble wrote:
> On 6/22/07, Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> ...
>> 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...

Totally agree. But again it's interesting to hold theory up to a real-world
case like Nexenta. My sense (IOW, I could be wrong) is that they _totally_
have the BFU process down pat. So for Nexenta, it seems the ON consolidation
literally serves as their easy-to-be-compatible-with base. And therefore it
follows that the tack they are on today (with regard to compatibility/incompatibility) 
is not at all due to the current lack of an OpenSolaris base distro...?

Still I strongly agree -- it would be hugely beneficial to make it easier
to be compatible, even in the face of this apparent anomoly. (There
apparently will always be projects who prefer the incompatible route --
including ones like Nexenta that are really viable and well-engineered. I
just hope it turns out to be a really small niche.)

Compatibility Junkie,
Eric


> - 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.