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:
2005-07-08
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.
My stock argument here is that, like everything in FOSS, standardization will follow consensus. While competing package formats are certainly not a desirable feature, neither is standardizing on a substandard packaging system. Last I checked, still no consensus on the best package manager.
However, one this is for sure: Linux users are being served far better by RPM and APT than Klik, Autopackage, Zero Install, et al. Show me a distro that successfully uses one of these self-contained package formats by default, and I'll certainly reconsider.