[clue-tech] Interesting sidux/smxi news

[Collins Richey]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 10:38 PM, Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:

I'll try to sort through the torturous logic this once, and then I'm
signing off.

>
> On Sep 18, 2008, at 8:15 PM, Collins Richey wrote:
>

>>
>> Not in a well coordinated fashion. In particular on sid, packages with
>> incomplete dependency chains appear all to frequently.
>

Since you haven't bothered to check, let me clue you in on the way
this works. Sid is the permanent unstable branch of Debian. Packages
enter sid with little or no testing - pretty raw stuff out of the
hopper. And, yes, occasionally (not really all that often) packages
slip into the mix with erroneous dependencies and/or without other
dependent packages. After some level of verification in sid, the
packages appear in Testing, and most of the time after the testing in
sid, they just work. More rigorous testing leads to a new stable
release for the consumption of less savvy users.

Sidux has undertaken the mission of testing sid-level software. Sidux
testing and the smxi tool we have been discussing help shielding users
from the few deadly errors that pop up in sid. Even a few Debian
developers have learned to appreciate the work done by Sidux. Unlike
the situation with Ubuntu, anything Sidux finds or fixes gets reported
back upstream to the sid developers.

No one would ever claim that Sidux or sid is the right distro for
Linux newbies, or that it could be used to convince the unwashed
masses to convert to Linux. It's for geeks who want the almost
bleeding edge packages. Since the Sidux developers and the smxi tool
do a bang up job, there are a surprising number of non-geeks who run
Sidux and contribute on the forums.

>>
>> Maybe someday there will be a Nate distro which does everything just
>> right. Oh, but that would require actual work instead of carping, and
>> you've made it abundantly clear .that you want PCs to just work with
>> no effort on your part.
>
> Ahh, come on now.  I wasn't personally going after you.

Never would have thought that.

< Maybe you have time
> to deal with this madness, but I live in a modern society where I have a
> specialized job that is NOT developing software.  I do this new thing called
> trading my work for money, and then buy software from those who spend their
> working days making it, and use it.  I also use some of this new-fangled
> open-source stuff.  (GRIN)

Mighty good of you. In case you haven't figured it out, you are
posting to a list where most people love "this madness" and are
willing to FIND THE TIME to use the software and to contribute back to
the community that produces it. You may choose to contribute your hard
earned $DAYJOB dollars to buy software for hire, but many of us (to
your chagrin no doubt) prefer to use free software and to work to
improve it.


> The fact that developers and "fans" tell me how wonderful it's all going to
> be someday is intriguing, but the real problem is, I stopped drinking that
> particular kool-aid in the last couple of years, and instead point out the
> serious flaws in the approaches that people drinking the kool-aid get all
> excited about.  That seems to bother you.  I'm not sure why.

As explained above, we're not kool-aid drinkers, just simple folks who
like to work with open software. Put downs of this sort should be
beneath your dignity, but obviously they're not. Sitting on the
sidelines telling the team how badly they're playing without making
any effort to cheer the team on is abominable behavior.

>
> People throw out words like "evil" about closed-source software companies,
> following RMS around like he's some shining example of success.  That kinda
> got old on me a number of years ago, too.

Relatively few of us support everything that RMS does, but he has put
his heart and soul into developing software for the community. His
rants get old for me, too, but I joyfully consume the products he has
built. I would not apply the term evil to most closed-source software
companies, but the underhanded corporate practices of Microsoft have
been purely evil from its inception.

>
> People that get all "religious" about operating systems fascinate me a bit
> too -- I used to be a little like that in my younger years, but as I grow
> older I see it for what it is... a way to artificially motivate people to do
> free work.  Okay, fine.  I'm not buying anymore, though.

That's total BS. There are some who are very zealous about open
software, but they don't see it as a marketing campaign to motivate
people to do free work. They seek to motivate people to produce and
consume freely-modifiable software, and they may very well get paid to
do that.

>
> With open-source the answer is always... "If you don't like it, start
> writing code."  Download the free stuff, but if you don't like it, tough.
>  The community isn't going to listen to you -- no matter how sane your
> requests are.

What rock have you been hiding under? Community software developers
ALWAYS listing to reasoned suggestions for improvements. OTOH, if you
present them with a list of YOUR SOFTWARE SUCKS demands as you have
here, I doubt that you'll get the desired response.


> Balance is better, but like political parties, people are forced to "choose
> sides", by licenses like GPL -- which has done more to restrict TRUE freedom
> in software for years, than say ... the BSD or Artistic licenses ever did...
> resulting in a lot of problems for all.

I'm not especially fond of the GPL, and I agree that we would have
been better off with a BSD style license
>
> Not everyone can or will be a coder.  That's the huge fallacy behind
> open-source, is that "anyone can fix it".  No they can't.

Not everyone who helps in the development of open source is a coder.
There are testers, documenters and people who take the time to suggest
reasonable improvements.

>
> Ironically if you really boil it down, the reason people PAY RedHat is not
> to make new software, as much as SLOW DOWN the madness.  If you're lucky,
> RedHat (the business) actually regression tests some of the code that flies
> out of the projects they rely on for their survival, even.

No, the principle reason many larger corporations run Red Hat or
Novell Linux is because they are required by their leagal beagles to
have a contract with recourse (someone to sue) if it breaks. Yes, Red
Hat regression tests SOME of the code. I've seen just as many serious
flaws in supposedly tested code from Red Hat as I have in the bleeding
edge distro I run!

>
> The bell curve would indicate that only a very small percentage of
> open-source projects of any substance should EVER be in a distro

Quite true, but so what?

>
> You champion Sidux because it works for you.  I'm COMPLETELY cool with that,
> but I reserve the right to comment on why I think it still isn't the
> open-source panacea the "marketing" material says it is, or will be.

What marketing material? What panacea? Read my lips again. Sidux is
marketed to those who want to have the latest and greatest versions of
Debian software and who want to help improve the Debian distros (not
just sid).


>
> Why pick on me for saying the whole concept of Sidux doesn't work for me?
>  Sidux is in my view, doing what a good friend of mine called, "Polishing
> the turd."  Sid is meant to be a turd, though -- so it's definitely an
> interesting concept.  Ask any Debian dev if anyone but a dev should be
> running Sid, and they'll all answer in the negative.  Their goal was to
> create a way for devs to work on the broken stuff.  Not a launching point
> for a distro.

Not exactly. You might want to check out
http://www.infodrom.org/~joey/log/?200809141127. You are making the
assumption that every distro has the same target audience. The target
audience for Sidux is developers, testers, documenters, etc. It's not
designed to be sold shrink-wrapped at BestBuy.

>
> So ... you're allowed to be a cheerleader, I'm allowed to be a curmudgeon.
>  It's okay.  I'm not harming you in any way by saying the Sidux model
> sucks... to me.

It doesn't suck for its users. It serves the puropose described above
ad nauseam. What's sucky about a distro that contributes to the
testing/debugging process in a big way?

>
> I'm a Linux fan, I'm just not going to apologize for its goofiness in
> forking and releasing new and different "stuff" all the time that doesn't
> add any value.  Somebody's gotta do it!  (GRIN)  No need to be angry at me
> about it.
>
> Just like we might not both vote for the same people in elections, we also
> have to vote whether or not we like the insanity of constantly replacing
> stuff that works.  You like Sidux, thus you vote "yes, change it all!"... I
> like the older RedHat model, the LTS distros, and Debian Stable, so I vote
> "no".
>

A somewhat narrow-minded approach. How do you suppose the Debian
Stable and Red Hat and Novell enterprise distros reached their point
of stability? Via distros like Fedora and Debian testing and sid, and
the various OpenSUSE flavors and many thousands of users who love the
insanity and the process of achieving sanity. Your no vote is totally
immaterial, since you are not willing to participate in the process of
improvement

Take this as personal or not, until you are willing to participate
fully in the use and testing of open software and to provide feedback
details to the development community (as many of us do) instead of
complaing about how badly it all sucks, your opinions are essentially
meaningless, just whistling in the wind.

Since you have not taken the time to discover the true purpose of sid
and Sidux in the Debian world, those opinions are not worth much
either.

I may be a Sidux cheerleader, but I'm only cheering to those who want
a bleeding edge distro, and whether or not you consider it to be a
turd, such distros are making vital contributions to the open software
movement.


-- 
Collins Richey
 If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
 of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.