[Mageia-dev] Teamviewer and X86_64 build . . .

[Robert Fox]

On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 10:14 +0100, Oliver Burger wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 29. November 2011, 10:07:16 schrieb Robert Fox:
> > We are not proposing that such packages be included in the ISOs - just
> > available in a repository which we can trust and know that it works . .
> And that's the problem. As misc pointed out, we can't really trust proprietary 
> stuff. No one has any control on the contents of those programms.
> And thus we cannot guarantee, that it works. If we add such a package now, it 
> might work now, but what happens, if we change any library or whatever?
> And since it's not OpenSource, we can't fix it, if it's broken.
> 
> And to be honest: What is so complicated about installing skype, teamviewer or 
> whatever proprietary crap from the vendor's homepage?
> Oh sure, it might force you to read a bit about what you are doing :/
> 
> Oliver

I agree with you that Mageia can't guarantee that such proprietary
software will function - or that it may break with future library
changes.  I am also not asking Mageia to trust third party, proprietary
software.  All I am asking is that Mageia recognise the need for the end
users to co-exist with their Mac / Winblows counterparts, and that
certain software is unavoidable.  Any efforts made to help get such
software to work properly with our distribution would be considered
positive.  We shouldn't have to guarantee ANYTHING, just make a
concerted effort to get such software to play nice with our distro!

If you watch what the "other" major distros are doing related to this
topic - it may give a hint.  I am NOT advocating that we have to be like
them, I believe we need to offer the ability and the choice.

As far as forcing someone to "read a bit" - some apps are more difficult
than others to install - and the install methods are sometimes
dramatically different (from tarball or from RPM or SRPM, etc).  This is
not always for the faint at heart.  I personally have no problem in
trying to install it myself, and research over the internet whether
someone else has figured it out already - but one of the main reasons I
stuck with Mandriva (and now Mageia) is that I always had a high chance
of finding a working RPM or instructions how to get it to work under the
distro.

enough said . . . I will crawl back into my cave.

Thx,
R.Fox