[Mageia-dev] How will be the realese cycle?

Tue Oct 5 04:35:12 CEST 2010

Le lundi 04 octobre 2010 à 20:35 -0500, Fernando Parra a écrit :
+
+
+> One of the regular questions I received when install a linux distro is: "But I really need to upgrade all my OS, if I only want the new version of my Office Suite?"
+> 
+> Let me remind you, The privative OS don't have this model, 
+> in them the users can install a new version of their favourite 
+> software as they want (or pay it). This is true at least as a 
+> Mayor upgrade at the OS, and in some cases the compatibility are maintained.
+
+Well, their model is too different, I have made a full 40 minutes
+conferences on the subject, except it is in french ( and the video is
+still not there ). 
+
+But basically, that's because Microsoft or Apple work in a segmented
+fashion. You have clear delimitations on what is the os, and what is
+not. Os is controled by a single entitie, and there is only a few APIs
+that you can use, and lots of test to ensure that the API is not broken
+( even if that mean keeping old code around, see
+http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html ).
+This segmentation also mean there is few lines of code put in common, be
+it for technical reasons, or legal ones. And the lack of code sharing
+mean complexity of the source code, which usually also mean more bugs,
+and more time to develop ( thus, less quality, if you invest the same
+ressources ).
+
+Never wondered why windows takes so much memory ? Now, you have the
+start of a answer.
+
+Now, on free software side, there is no artificial barrier between os
+and applications, no committee to declare "this is the official API for
+X years". There is just a bunch of people who constantly give source
+code, with the hope that everything will work fine together. And that's
+what we do as distributors, we pick components everywhere and make sure
+they are presented in a way that everybody can use. We even make more,
+we make sure they integrate cleanly with the others ( menu, code and
+library sharing, packages system, integrated installation ), which is
+something that usually is not done in proprietary os.
+
+People could do like windows. Just take a distribution, declare that you
+will never upgrade it for 4/5 years. Be sure to have a team ready to
+backport security fixes, and you will have the stable plateform you
+want.
+
+But then, people will want the latest kernel, to get support for their
+hardware. The latest xorg, for the same reason. But then, after
+upgrading xorg, you will need to update udev, and hal. After that you
+will see that gnome or kde no longer have a working automount so they
+need to be patched, or updated. But updating gnome may requires to
+update others components ( like gstreamer ) and so on.
+
+Even with this problem, this kind of distribution already exist. That's
+RHEL, or Centos. ( Or even Opensolaris, when it was still existing, or
+maybe others ).
+
+But :
+1) RHEL is not gratis, far from it. Centos is, but I do not think Centos
+could exist without RHEL. That's because the whole "let's validate the
+API" business is costly for the distribution. Far more costly that what
+we can afford as a community distribution, and far from being sexy for
+coders. For the coder that use a old API, this usually mean the API
+offer less features. For the coder who wrote a library and thus offer a
+API, this usually mean that no one test your new and improved code,
+which can be simpler, easier to debug, etc. So you cannot count on
+"free" coders, ie you have to pay someone to do the job. You also have
+to pay someone to do the formal and rigorous QA.
+
+2) newer distributions are usually offering more features. And people
+want features. The start of this discussion is "how can I install the
+new office suite", which basically mean "i would like to have new
+features of some software". While everybody will tell "but I only need
+this feature", nobody will give the same feature.
+
+But I think people can try to do it. Just install Centos to your
+friends, and make a rpm repository of update to firefox, to openoffice
+and others, and see how it goes. Or maybe use a BSD, like PcBSD
+( http://www.pcbsd.org/ ).
+
+Maybe you will have success. And maybe not.
+
+Personally, and as arrogant and elitist it sounds, I value more the
+innovation than binary endless compatibility, and so I think free
+software ressources are best spent into new features than into keeping
+unmaintained binary softwares working ( because yes, a software that no
+one recompile since X years is a unmaintained piece of binary to me ).
+
+So, to me, the current situation is fine. I know it is not for
+everybody, but as I said, for people who want a different system, there
+is a solution. 
+But I do not know why people do not use it. 
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+