On 10/07/2014 11:19 PM, Harry Holt wrote: > On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> You're basically arguing that if somebody putting together an OS has a >> working solution for something, they should spend just as much effort >> maintaining 3 other solutions for that something, and ensure that none >> of the solutions becomes any better than the others. OpenRC and >> Portage should work just as well with only csh installed as it does >> with bash installed, etc. >> > > No. Just no. If somebody is putting together an OS, they maintain the > interfaces / APIs that applications on top would use. That's all. If one > solution for, say, package managers or daemon startup works better than > another, so be it. It's not the responsibility of the Kernel / OS > developer, unless some application reveals a bug that others do not. Other > than that, pick the package manager / initializer / etc. that works best > for YOU. > >> >> That just isn't realistic. > > > The above scenario is ABSOLUTELY realistic, and the way it should work. > The straw man you've created above, not so much. But it's just a straw man. You may think its absolutely realistic, but the market doesn't agree with you. Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, et al call their products *distributions*, not *operating systems* because their customers don't want to create their own solutions. They want a collection of software pieces--kernel, libraries, applications--that solve their (end-user) problems. >> Most distros would rather support 47 >> features that users want, and not 3 features implemented 5 different >> ways each in a manner that is completely interchangeable. If a distro >> did things the way you wanted, very few would bother to use it, and >> likely fewer would bother to maintain it. Precisely. > But isn't that the point of Gentoo in the first place? You're selecting > packages for various functions that are typically source compatible, and > you compile them yourself. How many text editors can you choose from? How > many cron implementations? How many development languages and libraries? > How many email servers and clients? What would happen if the maintainers > decided Gentoo should only support one desktop environment, one shell, one > option for everything? Would emacs users look elsewhere because only VI is > available in Portage? I suspect so. > > The beauty of Gentoo is that even options not available from official > sources can be integrated with either an overlay, your own ebuild, or even > just building from source. But Gentoo is still a *distro*, not just an operating system. And it is less commercial than most, relying on volunteers to code "useful" stuff. There's coding going on, and a lot of whining going on. It's easy to see who's credible. >> Nothing is preventing you from starting a "Foundation for Redundant >> Solutions" - with the express aim of maintaining all the stuff nobody >> uses any longer. I can't imagine you'll get a lot of donations - even >> if people might agree with you philosophically at some level, they're >> going to want to spend their money investing in stuff they actually >> use. Thank you, Rich. This is perfect. Phil
