Debian Core Consortium Releases First Code 126
daria42 writes "It looks like the Debian Common Core Alliance announced a while ago is going to make good on its promises: the project has released its first code this week. The release consists of a base installation of Debian 3.1 with the Linux Standard Base and security updates attached. But the project also looks like it has attracted some criticism from within the Debian developer community - with a spoof Web site having already been set up to poke fun at the Alliance."
Releasing of the Code.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't matter anyway to the Debian groups.
Bah... (Score:4, Insightful)
Standards are a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
CH
Fragmenting (Score:4, Insightful)
- Dont like it? Fork it! - Dont like it? Roll your own!
Problem is that it leads to a lot of confusion and fragmentation within the community that confuses the hell out of outsiders.
I think consolidation is a good thing and folks should work together more often rather then just splintering a code base.
(Note, fragmentation CAN be a good thing in the cases like Security Knoppix or RTLinux)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
Debian - great idea, bad execution... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody's versions match those of DCC (even Debian itself) - if all members felt that way, there would be no DCC.
DCC is a good idea, and so was United Linux, which got screwed up by a member. DCC is not facing such risks, so I think it will prosper.
In any case, DCC is targeted at people and companies sick of dicking around with distro incompatibilities and frequent version updates - a bit different from Ubuntu and Fedora.
Re:Debian - great idea, bad execution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apt isn't what makes debian great. The package repositoiry is what makes Debian great. Without it, apt is just a simple tool that works no magic whatsoever. For a perfect example of this, try running some of the apt-rpm ports out there. If there isn't a consistant, well maintained package archive to point apt at, you're still in dependancy hell. Too many Debian copycats don't understand this.
this is (what I can make of) the critisism (Score:3, Insightful)
the spoof site at http://www.dccalliance.biz.nyud.net:8090/faq.html [nyud.net] is pretty slow too, here is my analysis (and a copy of their 'faq':
So somebody is upset about basing the name of a separate organisation on 'Debian' and abbreviate that to a 'D'. Well wanker, I tell you something: you cannot trademark a single letter, or we'd only have about 36 possible companies.
(this seems a rip-off from the 'real' DCC faq entry. see above, no trademarks on single letters.
Aha, a somewhat real-ish bone to pick. Except that creating a patched kernel is not such a big deal. You can find several in testing, does that mean that testing has been forked with every new kernel release? As long as the new kernel is interoperable with the one it replaces you can hardly call that forking.
is DCC necesary?
Debian has grown into a big organisation, and thus also has it's share of people with 'uncommon personalities'. It is all a volunteer effort (and thus?) some people in debian react a little allergic to commerce baseed on Debian, even though the licence allows it. Commercial Debian-based distro's have a vested interest in Debian, so they seek some influence. It can be vey hard to have to argue with every maintainer whose package they have altered to get him to accept the changes(There are 1000's of developers and and at least ten times more packages in Debian). Even with proper conflict resolution it quickly becomes a nightmare, so a lot of distro makers don't feed their changes upstream/to Debian at all.
That is a problem and something that a separate repository can solve. Yes that is in effect a fork, in the same sense that Ubuntu or Knoppix is a fork (not for the silly reason above). If the Debian derived distromakers have their own repository where they can work together changing Debian to their common goals without getting bogged down in Debian rules/games, then that is just great, IMHO.
It is great for the Debian-derived-distro-makers(DDDM?), as it allows them to cooperate and improve Debian while they are at it. It is great because it avoids conflict and bottlenecks. Commercials distro's (can) have a different interest than induvidual Debain developers. With this construction no single Debain developer can obstruct a DDDM. It is great because It will concentrate all enhancements made by DDDM's into one place, so the Debian developers don't need to track all different DDDMs for changes to their packages. And most of all, it will concentrate efforts into coding and cooperating, and that is good for all.
Re:Standards are a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
I can walk into any linux system and get stuff done, whether it's SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Knoppix, [insert distro here] and do regularly.
Maybe I am the minority but I certainly hope not. I've found you can glean anything you need to know from ld.so.conf, modules.conf, find, grep, and apropos.
Very basic simple stuff....
If you need a GUI to manipulate the sysem, you are distro-dependant. That's bad... if distro dependance is an issue for you, just stop using the heroin, er, um, guis. Learn how to do everything from a prompt and your distro dependancy will go away.
For me it takes much longer, for example, to use the network setup gui on any system, because on each system, you need to first figure out where it is, in the ouija board, known as gnome or kde, then you need to figure out what it does and how to use it.
vi ifcfg-eth0 works the same in any distro and you don't have to find vi or figure out how it works on a given distro. vi is universal. Guis and the distro specific tools in them, are frustrating...
Internet browsing, video games, word processing are what gui's are good for. If that's all you do, you don't really need to know the innards of the system, and probably shouldn't meddle with it.
l8,
AC
Re:this is (what I can make of) the critisism (Score:2, Insightful)
Great, I'm going to start a new Linux distribution tomorrow. I'll call it, oh, "Microsoft Windows Inspired Operating System". Then I'll get worried about trademarks and change it to "MWI Operating System", but make it clear what "MWI" is an abbreviation for. Finally, on the website I'll stick the Microsoft Windows logo to the left of "MWI Operating System" as part of the title.
The next day, everyone will be shocked when Microsoft isn't particularly happy.