Fwd: Octave?

Colin Charles byte at aeon.com.my
Mon Mar 21 06:26:19 UTC 2005


On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 16:00 -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> > > > Historically packages in extras have not been as well maintained...
> > >
> > > I'd love to see some proof of that. ANY proof of that, please.
> > 
> > Not to mention that Extras hasn't existed long enough for there to
> > really be a history...
> 
> Gah.  I should have careful with my words...   What I intended to
> convey is that packages included in the core distribution tend to be
> better maintained. This wasn't intended to be a specific slam against
> extras, and I'm disappointed that this one point from my post is
> drawing attention to the exclusion of the others.

I see the faith you have in Red Hat Engineering, and with Core, but not
with Extras for some reason? Well, if you look at the cvs-commits list,
you'll notice quite a lot of Red Hat employees pushing packages into
Extras

So this idea of "better maintained" is by far a myth

> The statement that in-core packages get more attention is pretty
> basic.. As a part of the core installation they get installed with a
> lot of other cruft along with an 'everything' installed and as a
> result they get a fair amount of casual 'whats this' use beyond the
> use that packages people must seek out and install by name get.  As a
> part of the core distribution  build problems in such package can
> become roadblocks to scheduled releases where being in extras is more
> of a 'if it's there it's there', it changes the priority of a package.

And the Core distribution is trying to push the "one good utility to do
the job". Granted that octave has no replacement in Core, but it also
isn't part of the Core uses of using a Linux desktop or server, is it?

Maybe at some stage, when we get FC5 or so, we can have Extras organised
in different forms, much like system-config-packages, or groups as you
may. "Fedora Extras Scientific", and pull that group in and have fun

Oh wait, we already have that with groups in yum :)

(but on a more serious note, we should be getting extras sorted that way
too at some stage)

> I believe that one of the huge advantages of the free software
> licensing model for the user is that there are greatly reduced
> barriers to using the full professional grade tool rather than some
> toy... By excluding such tools we increase the cost to the user from
> just being the learning curve to locating and installing the tool,
> this is a substantial change for those of us with plenty of disk space
> but who are often mobile and away from a fast network connection.

Hopefully Extras ends up on a DVD or a few CDs as well. Its on the todo
list, afaik

Why not maintain octave in Extras, if no one else has already taken it?
And make sure its the same high quality stuff you talk about :)
-- 
Colin Charles, byte at aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, 
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi




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