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> distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources. That's how you ended up with Erlang being split into 20+ packages on Ubuntu/Debian i

by troupo 1y ago

> distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources. That's how you ended up with Erlang being split into 20+ packages on Ubuntu/Debian in the past. Because it was packaged by people who know little about erlang, and had too much time on their hands probably. And that is the main issue: you want distro maintainers to compile and package every single pieces of software under the sun, but they can't possibly know every piece of software, how it works, or how it's supposed to work. Times that by the number of distros.

palata 1y ago
> you want distro maintainers to compile and package every single pieces of software under the sun No. I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that. > Because it was packaged by people who know little about erlang Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X. The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Everybody should use the exact same thing otherwise it doesn't work". That's not what I want. I want to have freedom, and the cost of it is that I may have to package stuff from time to time. If you don't want to contribute to your distro, choose a super popular distro where everything is already packaged (and used!). Or use macOS. Or use Windows. You don't get to complain about Alpine Linux not having a package you want: you chose Alpine, that was part of the deal.
- skydhash 1y ago
  Alpine is a great litmus test for programs that unnecessarily depends on glibc and systemd. More often than not, it’s easy to take the arch build script, and create a package for alpine. When that fails, it’s usually for the above reason.
- troupo 1y ago
  > I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that. Erm... Your original comment said "you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources." > Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X. So... Who's gonna package it if you say that distros should package it? > The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Bullshit. What you advocate for is "why bother with ease of use and convenience, everyone should learn how to compile and package everything from scratch" > If you don't want to contribute to your distro The user of a package doesn't necessarily know how to package something, and shouldn't need to.
  - palata 1y ago
    > Erm... Your original comment said "you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources." Yes. I said "distros", not "the distro maintainers". The distro is the maintainers + the packagers, and packagers can be random contributors (I package stuff for my distro when needed, but I am not a distro maintainer). > So... Who's gonna package it if you say that distros should package it? People who will use Erlang on that particular distro. Under the supervision of the distro maintainers. There is typically some kind of hierarchy where there are the "community" packages that are just "untested" (sometimes they can get promoted to a more trusted level), and the "core" packages that are handled by the distro maintainers. > What you advocate for is "why bother with ease of use and convenience, everyone should learn how to compile and package everything from scratch" Not at all, but it seems like you don't know how it currently works in traditional distros, and you don't understand what I'm saying (probably I'm not being clear, that's on me). What I advocate seems absolute common sense: "the package maintainer(s) should understand and use the package on the distro for which is is packaged". The vast majority (probably almost the totality of) users of Ubuntu or Arch have never had a need to package anything, because everything is already there. Because those distros are very popular. Depending on your choice of distro, it may happen that a package hasn't been contributed or even that it doesn't compile (e.g. if you use musl). In that case, if you want it, you need to contribute it. But if you use musl, you implicitly accept this and are supposed to know what you are doing. > The user of a package doesn't necessarily know how to package something, and shouldn't need to. That's your opinion. I would say that a Gentoo user is expected to have some idea about compiling packages, otherwise they should not use Gentoo. Ubuntu is targetting people who don't want to know how it works, that's fine too. Diversity is good. What I don't like, is Windows-minded people ("I shouldn't have to understand how my computer works") who come to Linux and push for everybody to become like them. "We should all use systemd and Flatpak, and pay one team of 50 people who know how that works, and the rest of us should just use it and not know about it" -> I disagree with that. Those who think that should just use Ubuntu/Windows/macOS and leave me alone. And for those who use Ubuntu, they should remember that they don't pay for it next time they say "it's shit because it doesn't do exactly what I want".
    - 1y ago

by troupo 1y ago

palata 1y ago

> you want distro maintainers to compile and package every single pieces of software under the sun No. I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that. > Because it was packaged by people who know little about erlang Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X. The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Everybody should use the exact same thing otherwise it doesn't work". That's not what I want. I want to have freedom, and the cost of it is that I may have to package stuff from time to time. If you don't want to contribute to your distro, choose a super popular distro where everything is already packaged (and used!). Or use macOS. Or use Windows. You don't get to complain about Alpine Linux not having a package you want: you chose Alpine, that was part of the deal.

skydhash 1y ago
Alpine is a great litmus test for programs that unnecessarily depends on glibc and systemd. More often than not, it’s easy to take the arch build script, and create a package for alpine. When that fails, it’s usually for the above reason.
troupo 1y ago
> I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that. Erm... Your original comment said "you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources." > Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X. So... Who's gonna package it if you say that distros should package it? > The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Bullshit. What you advocate for is "why bother with ease of use and convenience, everyone should learn how to compile and package everything from scratch" > If you don't want to contribute to your distro The user of a package doesn't necessarily know how to package something, and shouldn't need to.
- palata 1y ago
  > Erm... Your original comment said "you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources." Yes. I said "distros", not "the distro maintainers". The distro is the maintainers + the packagers, and packagers can be random contributors (I package stuff for my distro when needed, but I am not a distro maintainer). > So... Who's gonna package it if you say that distros should package it? People who will use Erlang on that particular distro. Under the supervision of the distro maintainers. There is typically some kind of hierarchy where there are the "community" packages that are just "untested" (sometimes they can get promoted to a more trusted level), and the "core" packages that are handled by the distro maintainers. > What you advocate for is "why bother with ease of use and convenience, everyone should learn how to compile and package everything from scratch" Not at all, but it seems like you don't know how it currently works in traditional distros, and you don't understand what I'm saying (probably I'm not being clear, that's on me). What I advocate seems absolute common sense: "the package maintainer(s) should understand and use the package on the distro for which is is packaged". The vast majority (probably almost the totality of) users of Ubuntu or Arch have never had a need to package anything, because everything is already there. Because those distros are very popular. Depending on your choice of distro, it may happen that a package hasn't been contributed or even that it doesn't compile (e.g. if you use musl). In that case, if you want it, you need to contribute it. But if you use musl, you implicitly accept this and are supposed to know what you are doing. > The user of a package doesn't necessarily know how to package something, and shouldn't need to. That's your opinion. I would say that a Gentoo user is expected to have some idea about compiling packages, otherwise they should not use Gentoo. Ubuntu is targetting people who don't want to know how it works, that's fine too. Diversity is good. What I don't like, is Windows-minded people ("I shouldn't have to understand how my computer works") who come to Linux and push for everybody to become like them. "We should all use systemd and Flatpak, and pay one team of 50 people who know how that works, and the rest of us should just use it and not know about it" -> I disagree with that. Those who think that should just use Ubuntu/Windows/macOS and leave me alone. And for those who use Ubuntu, they should remember that they don't pay for it next time they say "it's shit because it doesn't do exactly what I want".
  - 1y ago