Re: Problem installing packages

[Sergei Steshenko]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden>
> To: Martin Helm <address@hidden>
> Cc: Rich Mack <address@hidden>; "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 1:07 AM
> Subject: Re: Problem installing packages
> 
> On 28 May 2012 17:57, Martin Helm <address@hidden> wrote:
>>  Am 28.05.2012 23:35, schrieb Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso:
>>>  This is because nobody is has take the trouble to properly package OF
>>>  for rpm-based distros since the prehistoric monolithic OF releases. So
>>>  yes, because nobody is doing it there, you *have* to do it yourself
>>>  and compile from source. But on Debian someone is taking care of the
>>>  packaging and compiling, so there's no need for most users to do it
>>>  again. - Jordi G. H.
>>  Completely not true, the science repository in openSUSE which is
>>  specialized for this kind of packages ships the OF packages as single
>>  packages and not since yesterday but for a long time.
> 
> Okay, sorry, partially true. It's Fedora and relatives that have
> lagging on the OF packaging, and have been lagging for a long time:
> 
>     http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OrionPoplawski/Octave_Packages
> 
> I wasn't aware that openSUSE did package them. Good to know.
> 
>>  The fact that I compile them myself is because I prefer that
> 
> So why do you prefer that? Do you think everyone should compile
> packages? Do you think openSUSE has wasted its time making packages?
> Should we tell people to ignore the openSUSE packages and make sure
> they can compile straight from OF instead and help them with all of
> their compilation woes? Is that what we should be recommending?
> 
> - Jordi G. H.


One of the selling points of FOSS is that source is available and there is no 
vendor lockin.

The latter, if not to compile from sources on the spot, is not true - one has 
to wait for next release of his/her favorite distro in order to get new 
versions of SW.

And often new versions of distros are buggy. Or, say, KDE3->KDE4 or 
GNOME2->GNOME3 transitions happen, and people are really pissed of. By the way, 
KDE4 now is fine.

So, if a compilation from source is not possible, it defeats the FOSS purpose, 
and in this case I call nonsense-source software.

Again: compilation woes means vendor lockin. As simple as that.

--Sergei.