RPM non free?

[Collins Richey]

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 07:54:45 +0200
Roger Oberholtzer <roger at opq.se> wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 17:20:30 -0400
> "Karsten M. Self" <kmself at ix.netcom.com> (by way of Douglas J Hunley 
> <doug at hunley.homeip.net>) wrote:
> 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > - From Debian Weekly News:
> > 
> >     RPM orphaned and not free anymore? Joey Hess [17]orphaned
> >     [18]rpm since the newest version depends on the non-free
> >     elfutils library. This makes it impossible for Joey to update
> >     the package. Not being able to include rpm in Debian could have
> >     far reaching consequences - from problems with the LSB to
> >     increased difficulty to run other distributions software on
> >     Debian and vice-versa.
> > 
> >      17. http://bugs.debian.org/239518
> >      18. http://packages.debian.org/rpm
> > 
> > RPM support is required by LSB.
> > 
> > This could be an oversight on the part of Red Hat.  Or it could be a
> > strategic move on the part of Red Hat to exclude free distributions
> > including Debian and Gentoo, from LSB compliance.
> 
> Not Gentoo. It is rpm-free. It uses a different packaging system.
> 
> > I sense a great disturbance in the force.
> 
> RPM is not indispensable. I have been happy with Gentoo's ebuild
> system for quite some time. RPM need not apply.
> 

True enough, but as DEP would say, Gentoo doesn't need any help
remaining not quite LSB compliant. It's unlikely that Gentoo will ever
move gnome, kde, and qt out of their own directories under /usr, since
their scheme is 1) any compiled package in /usr, 2) any binary package
in/opt, and 3) /usr/local strictly for local administrator use., and
4) the user base wants to be able to install multiple versions
without interference.  That's only partially useful with gnome, since
they comingle some mutually incompatible functions between releases.

Of course, nothing prevents you from reinventing RPM hell on Gentoo if
you enjoy pain. If trying to hunt down binary packages compiled for
your specific version of glibc, etc. is your forte, RPM away. Would this
qualify as self abuse?

-- 
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( CR ) Collins Richey
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