Linked by Thomas Leonard on Tue 16th Jan 2007 00:32 UTC
In the Free and Open Source communities we are proud of our 'bazaar' model, where anyone can join in by setting up a project and publishing their programs. Users are free to pick and choose whatever software they want... provided they're happy to compile from source, resolve dependencies manually and give up automatic security and feature updates. In this essay, I introduce 'decentralised' installation systems, such as Autopackage and Zero Install, which aim to provide these missing features.
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Member since:
2005-12-15
This is a good article and a great attempt to explain the problems, cases, resolutions and summaries of what I feel is a common problem in the FOSS environment.
I guess there is the arguement that this system just adds yet another installation choice adding another layer of complication, especially for less technical users. This is true, but only if a common installation method isn't adopted by the majority of Linux vendors.
Frankly, I think it's very much time to start settling on a single common installation method / package manager. It's certainly a hurdle that I feel is impacting to a degree adoption of Linux.
Installation and compilation via source should always be there. It exists on other platforms and offers a degree of freedom that developers and more technically savvy users want, however for the rest a common solution needs to be used across all distributions.
Fingers crossed.
Edited 2007-01-16 01:46