Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
On Sunday 18 July 2004 02:02, Andrew Graupe wrote:
I think that all distros should be supported, with just a collection of
binary drivers in a .tar.gz format, with installation instructions. I
don't need an ebuild, but the option to install these drivers on any
distro should be given.
i agree completely.
however, many expect with what would seem to be the "logic of the obvious"
that the onus should and does fall with the software manufacturers.
unfortunately, this is completeley unrealistic.
what follows is a stream-of-consciousness rant which i haven't (and can't
really be bothered to ;) proof-read... enjoy (or don't)...
how many Free(dom) OSes are out there? a dozen or so BSD variants, probably
the same number of Linux distros with >1% (Linux) market share, and several
dozen smaller acts. to ship kernel modules (sub 'X drivers' as desired in
this conversation as it's essentially the same), that work on each of those
OSes one would need to know the specific way each one built their kernels,
laid out the filesystem, etc. since some of those peculiarities are a result
of the compiler used you also have to support multiple compilers. this is not
as easy as it might sound as different versions of gcc (let alone other
compilers!) have different quirks. huzzah! you'd need at least one instance
of each OS and version of that OS you wish to support and build it on each. i
know of companies who have done just that and it isn't a picnic.
and we haven't even yet gotten to the idea of Q/A and customer support, JUST
building and packaging.
all this adds up to increased complexity, increased cost, increased
sophistication required on the part of the software vendor, etc...
"But," you might say, "that's the price of Freedom! We just have to require
such efforts be made, end of story!"
i'd counter that Freedom is a responsibility which we are best served by
wielding responsibly. in this case, if there is a better way to provide
cross-OS binary support without requiring every single software vendor to go
through an amazing set of hurdles, we ought to engage that process.
one obvious idea might be to hand off the building to another organization who
specializes in such a thing. perhaps OSDL would be a good candidate. but this
just shifts the reqiurements elsewhere, complicates things with questions of
licensing and privacy when it comes to non-Free software, etc...
BEST would be if it were possible to run the same binaries on ANY OS! this can
be accomplished with languages that run in virtual machines even when
compiled, such as Java, or which are interpreted at runtime such as Python,
Ruby, Perl and PHP. but we're still left wth file system issues, what
services can be reliably expected to exist, etc... so simply moving away from
natively compiled binaries (which isn't really an option for many real world
applications) isn't even enough.
no, STANDARDS are needed. ones that people VOLUNTARILY follow when creating
their OS.
as an example, the fact that Gentoo, Slackware, etc, use their own little
messed up init script styles defeats this possibility right now. every time
an OS creator decides to do something "their way" simply out of personal
taste rather than some sort of pragmatic reason they make the situation
worse. every time you choose to support, install and promote such OSes you
help extend the reach of those damaging choices.
if you want binaries on your OS, then get your OS to play with the larger
community better. this doesn't mean "lowest common denominator" or "Company X
dictates", it means cooperating and working together. if KDE, GNOME and X.org
can manage this then surely Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, Gentoo, etc, etc, etc
can too.
There were binary drivers available from unichrome.sf.net, so I guess
someone has done it. I bet if you offered the source to select people,
in return for the binary, they would compile it for you on their
distro/system/etc... It wouldn't even have to be open-source (get the
people to sign an NDA).
--
My computer beat me at chess, I beat it at boxing. We're even.
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