On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Warren Baird <[email protected]>wrote:

> Seems to me like the wind is blowing in the other direction, at least
> on this mailing list...  For commercial dependencies it might make
> sense to include everything in one package, just to simplify pricing
> and distribution.   But for open-source dependancies I really don't
> think it makes sense to disallow non-meego dependancies...
>
> Take a look at any modern linux distro.   How many packages are there
> that depend on other 3rd party libraries and tools?   It's going to
> make the open-source developers life a lot more complicated if they
> have to bundle *everything* in their package - not to mention the
> wasted disk space, which can be at a premium on a handset...
>

There is quite a lot of precedents on the topic actually. Repositories on
linux were born as a natural need for a centralized way of distributing
interdependent components for a particular platform - and were maintained by
platform people, porters, etc - people usually quite unrelated to what the
end-users actually used. Commercial (not quite the right term though) on the
other hand had to be self-sufficient and self-maintained, so could not
afford the luxury of 'proper' dependencies and QA over the myriad of Linux
distributions and hence the preferred blob-style distribution (whether it's
a deb, rpm, or even tar.gz is in this sense irrelevant).

The real question here is/was - will there be a platform level choice in
favor of one of these groups ***in a way that is detrimental to the other
one*** ? IMO there shouldn't be - it would be a poor choice to make the
delineation of commercial/community (or if you wish store/3rp party repo)
made in a way that reduces both the amount of available software AND
introduces entry barriers to developers, regardless if they are hobbyists,
open source enthusiasts or paid hardcore professionals.



Best regards,
Attila
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