Re: lynx-dev Re: LinuxApps: Lynx

[Heather]

> On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, David Woolley wrote:
...
> > Unfortunately, they have also been taught, by Microsoft, to want the 
> > latest beta quality software, and don't realise that there is also
> > alpha quality software out there in the freeware arena.
> > 
> > A significant element of the Linux community itself, particularly those
> > with anti-Microsoft leanings (and companies that sell Linux commercially),
> > are positively encouraging Linux to move into this market.
> 
> Nice rant.  But I think you are exaggerating, especially when you
> claim that "the typical Linux user ... do[es] not _want to know_ how
> to build from source." (emphasis added)

I agree, with the caveat... they want it to be as easy as what they are
familiar with.  So they are willing to cd /usr/local/install/foo, run
./configure, run make install, all without caring, as long as it works,
because to many that is the same degree of complexity as "stuff the CD
in E: and if it doesn't run it for you, you'll have to find the SETUP
program and run it yourself."

The difficulty I think we will see increase, is not so much their unwilling
to do this, as their lack of knowledge about it;  until fairly recently (as
late as october last year I'd say) nearly any Linux user would recognize
the useful from the non-useful messages if the compile did not go well. 
Nowaadays many won't.  Perhaps we should have configure or make install
create error logs, which we can ask them to send us instead of screen
shots.

> > Moreover, there seem to be quite a few people out there who want to make
> > a name for themselves by being the first to bring out an RPM, so there is
> > competition to create the first RPM of each alpha version (from what I've
> > heard, Debian is rather more disciplined in this respect, than Red Hat).

Worse, RPM is just a packaging mechanism;  an RPM is still going to work
best on the type of environment for which it was compiled, and likely to
make some assumptions about directory structures.  So an RPM built on a
RedHat 6 system may not be perfect on a RedHat 5.0 system, and may not be
usable on a SuSE 5.2 system.

> > Although I haven't visited freshmeat; my impression is that it is under
> > a commercial imperative to get as many hits as possible, which means that
> > it has to be driven by the market demand for the very latest versions.
> > Unfortunately, the GPL means you can't embargo such distribution.
> 
> Speculation about freshmeat's motivation aside, yes the GPL means we
> cannot pick and choose who is allowed to distribute the program.  I
> would not call that unfortunate.

I think they're merely more interested in pubbing announcements thasn 
sorting them.  If we pubbed to them regular announcements of dev versions
they would mention us more often.

...
> Linux lynx users who chose to get lynx through some middleman to get
> lynx, and then come to lynx-dev with some problem, can be advised to
> either go back and talk to their middleman or compile from source, if
> nobody here happens to know a solution.  It shouldn't be lynx-dev page
> maintainers' responsibility to tell those folks where to find the "best"
> lynx binary package, that way lies madness.
> 
>    Klaus

(enthusiastic clapping) you sure got that right...  but it could be 
instructive to mention what version of lynx is known to ship with known
distributions, and the site to pick up the SSL parts (since most disties
cannot ship them for the same legalese reasons that we don't just build
it in).

* Heather