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> I sometimes wish it were possible to do a better mashup. I feel the best of both worlds is the bazaar model combined with curated software/library repositori

> I sometimes wish it were possible to do a better mashup. I feel the best of both worlds is the bazaar model combined with curated software/library repositories where rules for inclusion are more rigid and opinionated. For example, most programming languages have a standard library (the cathedral) and an ecosystem of third party libraries (the bazaar). Within that ecosystem of third party libraries, we could theoretically have curated repositories of libraries which share a coherent vision. In the real world though, I haven't really seen that happening. Node.js has registry.npmjs.org (no curation), Ruby has rubygems.org (no curation), etc. In the OS world, there is Ubuntu which is more cathedral like but I feel it should be a lot more opinionated perhaps at the cost of flexibility/portability.

justincormack 12y ago
Well FreeBSD is more like that than Linux, which doesnt really even have s basic standard userspace.
- uoou 12y ago
  People don't use 'Linux', they use a particular Linux Distro which does tend to provide the standardisation described (more so for some, less for others). The fact that Linux-in-general is a roiling maelstrom is irrelevant to a user using a particular distro. It is relevant to developers and/or packagers though.
regularfry 12y ago
In theory, this isn't a million miles away from what Debian aims at. However there's a social pressure on the various teams to include as much as possible, so what curation there is doesn't end up being very opinionated. I personally have some fairly strong opinions on what Debian/Ruby should look like, but have neither the standing nor the time to expend developing it in order to move the needle there.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  Ubuntu was created as a more opionated subset of Debian. Yet, everybody adds the universe to their source.list. That's the problem with opinions, when they are too weak they are almost useless, and when they get stronger people can not agree on anything anymore.

justincormack 12y ago

Well FreeBSD is more like that than Linux, which doesnt really even have s basic standard userspace.

uoou 12y ago
People don't use 'Linux', they use a particular Linux Distro which does tend to provide the standardisation described (more so for some, less for others). The fact that Linux-in-general is a roiling maelstrom is irrelevant to a user using a particular distro. It is relevant to developers and/or packagers though.

regularfry 12y ago

In theory, this isn't a million miles away from what Debian aims at. However there's a social pressure on the various teams to include as much as possible, so what curation there is doesn't end up being very opinionated. I personally have some fairly strong opinions on what Debian/Ruby should look like, but have neither the standing nor the time to expend developing it in order to move the needle there.

marcosdumay 12y ago
Ubuntu was created as a more opionated subset of Debian. Yet, everybody adds the universe to their source.list. That's the problem with opinions, when they are too weak they are almost useless, and when they get stronger people can not agree on anything anymore.