The Ubuntu Live conference began yesterday in Portland Oregon with Mark Shuttleworth's keynote presentation. Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu project's charismatic leader, discussed a wide variety of topics relating to Canonical's business prospects and the future of the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
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Member since:2005-11-11
"And I suppose Windows Update takes care of those as well, then? You're deliberately missing the point of whole-system package management. Installation is but one."
Yes I am. I'm not talking about whole-system package management. I'm talking about *binary compatibility*. I agree that Linux package management makes installation and updating a lot easier, but the binary incompatibilities between distributions bugs me.
"Upstream provides the source tarball, your particular distro makes sure it works within their environment and provide the binary package for your convenience. How does this not work?"
And this is exactly what I meant by "people don't recognize this as being a problem".
Imagine the following. You're using SomeDistro version 1.0, which ships Firefox 1.5. Today, Firefox 2.0 was released. You want to upgrade to Firefox 2.0, but uh oh, your distro only ships 1.5. You have to upgrade to SomeDistro 2.0 just to get Firefox 2.0. Doesn't that seem very odd to you? To upgrade an entire distro just to upgrade from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0?
Now, wouldn't it be a lot easier if you can just install upstream Firefox 2.0 binaries, that work on all Linux distros? And *this* is where binary compatibility jumps in. Mozilla has to maintain a dedicated, highly tweaked "build box" - a machine with a highly tweaked Linux distro - just to build binaries that work on most Linux distros. Do you think the average developer even has the resources to maintain such a dedicated build box?
Also, imagine yourself as being a commercial developer (yes yes closed source is evil yadda yadda). You have developed an extremely popular program called Photoshoot. Lots and lots of customers started to ask for a Linux port. Because of patents and the fact that you licensed third party libraries (and many other reasons), you cannot open source Photoshoot. And now what do you do? You can't ask distros to package your app. Isn't it a huge pain to make 5 different binaries, compiled on 5 different Linux distributions? Wouldn't why a single binary, that works on all distros, be a good thing?
"It's not the same as Windows, but this isn't Windows."
That's no excuse. If you say "Sure we don't have a GUI in FooOS like Windows does. But this isn't Windows." then you'll have a hard time convincing your grandmother to use FooOS.
Edited 2007-07-24 21:23
Member since:2006-06-14
Imagine that I'm running Gentoo, Arch, or any other distro with rolling updates. Oh, wait! I am!
If SomeDistro is worth it's salt, it will backport security fixes.
Because granny is likely to care that FooBarBaz 1.4 went to 2.1 and upgrading to it right now will make or break the deal? Pure nonsense.
Member since:2006-06-14
Eh.. I notice you added a paragraph, but I've run out of editing time.
Let's for a moment suppose software patents are valid here (they aren't), and that I would want to run non-free software (I don't).
If you're in that kind of bind, you have the resources to ensure your binaries are LSB compliant and just drop it all to /opt. I understand its purpose was this. Then all you have to watch are glibc updates.
Also, I couldn't help but notice that you have the autopackage website as your homepage, and you've posted before claiming to be a developer. That certainly explains your unwillingness to acknowledge that the current system works.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Member since:
2006-06-14
And I suppose Windows Update takes care of those as well, then? You're deliberately missing the point of whole-system package management. Installation is but one.
You keep bringing up protocols and web servers, when you're debating the webserver internals. The 'problem' is a level removed from where you're projecting it.
Tell you what, write up that Request-For-Comments, and I'll provide comments on it.
From where I stand, it seems plenty enough. Upstream provides the source tarball, your particular distro makes sure it works within their environment and provide the binary package for your convenience. How does this not work?
It's not the same as Windows, but this isn't Windows.