Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

Fragmentation is only a problem in the binary, closed source world. Diverging source trees only result in more work for the one maintaining the divergent tree.

More like, Nokia decided to move on with Maemo 6 instead of migrating over the MeeGo, which they thought wouldn't be complete at the time. Silly, and poorly timed, but they were already in a bad spot and then Elop came along.

No. This is complete and utter nonsense of the purest form.

No, they've got their own way of doing things and it's not shown itself to be lacking. You may disagree, but then it comes down to you saying "they're doing it bad and wrong because I don't like it" and your technical arguments have to deal with Debian's success regardless of whatever flaws there may be in the packaging system, all of which could be fixed.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

Well, I've never been a Debian guy, but saying if Nokia goes bankrupt it's even partially Debian's fault is a real stretch.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

No. There is LSB-standard about packet management and undeniably having transaction support there is a benefit and practically is more secure having GPG signatures embedded and not detached; so Debian's legacy reasons are just irrational and childish.

It doesn't much matter to end user, so I just cannot get it why Debian won't follow the standard which would be better than its own.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

Really? Do you have examples of their irrational and childish reasons?

So you don't actually have any "reasons," just your personal perspective on what's better?

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

I have had these conversations for about 10 years already on different forums, and I haven't heard any rational reason lately. In the old days sure, rpm had dependency problems when people were installing rpm packages cross the realeases and there wasn't rpmfusion, but those problems are long gone.

There is the standard. Not using the standard is causing problems, like with Nokia now. Technically and practically the standard is better. So, no, they should get to work and change it already. Of course it won't be easy, but staying out of standard is bad for everyone and for the whole Linux "ecosystem" (sorry vi_ :-)

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

Perhaps I am simply confused, but Nokia's problem goes much deeper than the lack of a compatible packaging system. Packages built for openSuSE aren't guaranteed to work on Fedora or Mandriva.

Then why are you picking a bone with Debian and the far more numerous other distributions that don't use RPM or DEB?

Remember, the LSB is not a hard standard in the Linux world. And Debian not using it (or even switching to it) would solve no extra problems in the grand scheme of things, as packaging is hardly a problem in the Linux world.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

The (deb-) change should start from the Debian or from Ubuntu. They should see the importance. And yes, it is a problem. All software could have *.spec file written for it already by the developer and use cryptographic safe packages from the start when they are just distributing test packages for their alpha-testers. It would be safer and chances to get Trojan horse to Linux ecosystem would be smaller. It would solve some of the problems and would be the good start to get more non-fragmented ecosystem for commercial companies making software for Linux.

Linux Foundation is right not to give permission to use "Meego"-name for N950 unless it uses rpm-package system. We do not want nor need more fragmentation in Linux ecosystem than there already is.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

But what about all those other horrible non-RPM distributions? What should they do?

The "ecosystem" isn't fragmented as it is, unless you're talking about a lazy proprietary developer (the ones that whine loudest about the kernel's dynamic nature, for instance) that insists on everyone conforming to their desires.

About the only way to eliminate this "fragmentation" of which you speak (you may be confusing it for diversity) would be to forcibly shut down every distro outside the one you prefer, since even openSuSE and Fedora differ in ways such that packages don't migrate cleanly.

Yet despite Linux's dynamic nature, some companies, like Xilinx, still deliver their most powerful software in a manner that works on more Linux systems than just RHEL or SuSE Enterprise.

I suppose you are suggesting that this would allow developers to generate their own packages. There's nothing stopping them now, and they'd still have to generate multiple RPM packages, one for each distro in question.

Yes, because the MeeGo standard explicitly states compliance to the LSB and the LSB specifies using RPM. That, however, is only a tiny issue with respect to why Maemo 6 does not qualify for the MeeGo name.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

I believe it is the biggest reason, from what I've read in meego.org
Do you have some other information?
Having rpm-support, N950 would be easily upgraded to newer version Meego-components and Meego-applications could be installed by an end user easily. Now practically as it seems to come with Maemo6, users should do a community based switch to real Meego in some point and it will cause problems and confusion.

Re: Nokia - Microsoft partnership (merged threads)
 

Netmarketshare "statistics" are utterly useless, unless you want to count the percentage of OS used by idiot douchebags, which I guess alot of marketers would be fine with, as they are easier marks

Netmarketshare gives their clients a javascript and tracking cookie combination tracker, so their clients can track users across any netmarketshare using websites. Their data comes from these website clients, which means that a high percentage of the sites are probably crappy douchebags, who have no qualms about such things. Netmarketshare then has lots of marketing data to sell to other idiots.

Linux users are more likely than any other OS user to run Noscript, have javascript turned off in general, not allow non whitelisted cookies, use a hosts file to block useless bandwidth wasters like netmarketshare (their web analytic url hitslink.com is in my hosts file) or use privoxy. This means they won't show up in netmarketshare's "analysis". To add to that, are the larger number of linux user who change their useragent string, than other OS users.