Linked by Jason Vagner on Fri 16th Apr 2004 20:37 UTC
O'Reilly's latest entry in the "Pocket" series, "Linux Pocket Guide", bills itself as a "quick reference for experienced users and a guided tour for beginners".
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The point is that there are _hundreds_ of rebrands of Linux. A package that works for one distro, in my experience often does not work for another, or even a different version of the same distro for that matter. If my app has 2 packages (see above GAIM example) and I want to build it for the last 3 version of the 20 most popular distrobutions I have to build and test 120 packages. Even with 120 packages this can still break on systems where someone upgraded their version of QT.
No, pre-built binary packages won't work between distributions. Source will, though. And native packages will.
OpenSSL is one of the few library examples where you have to upgrade any package that links to it for every version number. Apps that build against gtk 2.0+ do NOT need to be recompiled each time you upgrade gtk. Same for QT. The major version number change indicates an entirely (or partly) new and incompatible API, but those almost always can be built alongside the old version.
If I update my application I also have to update all 120 packages. On windows or Mac I build one package.
Why not just distribute the source and save yourself the trouble? Do you actually think that application developers are releasing 120 versions of each package for each release? That just doesn't happen--that's not reality.
This _forces_ me to make my software on Linux open source. Where is the freedom in that??
Plenty of software is written for Linux which isn't open source. Also, there may be less freedom for you, but more for the users. Freedom isn't exactly the same thing as choice. Suffice it to say, as a developer, there does exist pressure on you to release your work under an open license. That is hardly stifling your freedom.
And don't tell me to switch to another distro if I cannot find packages for the one I am using. I have enough trouble finding working packages with RH and Mandrake which are the 2 most popular distros in case you missed the memo.
What packages are you having trouble finding? I think I did miss the memo, but if you tell me what you're having a hard time with installing I'll be glad to help for free--that's what we do in the OSS community
I won't even go into library incompatibilities. The OS was simply never designed for the desktop.
Please do. None of the aforementioned points really conclude that Linux isn't desktop-capable, and if you want to maintain that point, I suggest you support it.