Alastair Reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Carl mentioned:
> > [...] the hugs 1.4 was the Debian packaged version: [...]
>
> That reminds me that I meant to ask:
>
> How do people feel about packages vs source tarballs?
>
> As I see it, packages have the advantage that they give you a warm
> fuzzy feeling when you install them but the disadvantages that you
> can't tweak the configuration and they might not perfectly suit your
> machine. (eg the guy who built the package might be using a different
> version of libc or readline)
>
> Having installed plenty of code from source, I get a warm fuzzy feeling the
> moment I realise it uses autoconf. Do packages make people feel warmer
> or fuzzier?
I guess the main "warm fuzzy" feeling I get from packages is knowing
that the packaging system is tracking which files belong to which
packages, so that if I ever remove Hugs (not that I ever would!) or
upgrade it, I know that there aren't old files lying around. Somehow,
it just really irks me to have all these files in /usr/local and have
no idea what they do, or whether something would break if I removed
them; and I occasionally worry about whether files from an old install
might "contaminate" a new install.
The other advantage of packages is that they let people try out the
software who wouldn't try to compile it themselves. For instance, if
the package were put in the Debian distribution, tens of thousands
(hundreds of thousands? I really don't know) of users will be offered
the opportunity to trivially install Hugs. Just think, if they all
do, and they all love it (which of course they would), this could be
the event that brings about the glorious dawn of the age of functional
programming! :-)
Speaking of which, is there any chance of modifying the copyright on
Hugs to conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines
(http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html#guidelines) so that it can
be put in the main Debian distribution? Currently the Hugs package is
in "non-free", making it a sort of second-class citizen.
Carl Witty
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
