[ale] Linux for sale

[Dan Newcombe]

On 2 Sep 1997, Lex Spoon wrote:
> Installation consists of copying the binary to /usr/local/bin, the
> config file to /etc, the supplementary files to
> /usr/local/lib/something, the man page(s) to /usr/local/man/man?, and
> the libraries to /usr/local/lib.  A good installation program will let
> the user override what directory everything goes into.

The installs are usually pretty good - pretty simple - just moving files.
Much better than all that registry crap.  :)

 
> As for dependencies on installed software, there are three kinds of
> dependencies and they are all easily checked:
>     the kernel version           run uname
>     libraries                    use ldd on the binary
>     outside programs from 
>     other packages               try to run the programs

Easily checked - yes...but not always easily fixed.  There are people that
still run on A.out because they are scared to upgrade their libraries...I
don't think they'll want to just to run one program.  I don't think it's a
good policy for companies to want you to always upgrade just to run their
software - but for the most part this isn't a big problem (except the
aout/elf issue) as the lib is pretty backwards/forwards compatiable, as is
the libX11's.  It's usually the side libraries like Xpm, etc... that cause
the headaches because of new features in new versions.
 
> Furthermore, a commercial program can play it safe by only requiring
> very common libraries, such as libc, libm, and the X libraries.

Yes, they can play it safe - but what if their code uses Motif, or Xpm, or
any other library out there?   They can statically link it, but then you
have to deal with 8M binaries for a clock!  :)  (Okay - a little
exageration)

 
>     1) Netscape  went easily    
		an 8M semi-staticlly linked binary
		
>     2) Acrobat Reader went easily
		a 2.5M semi-statically linked binary


>     3) Smalltalk/X demo clearly stated it required an old version
>        of the X libraries.  I didn't bother to find the old libraries,
>        but it wouldn't have been that hard to do so.

Oh - so now we have to maintain multiple copies of libraries?  Not hard to
do, but can the average end user do that?

>     2) distribute the source code, or at least modules
>        that only interface to the OS through external libraries.

YES!  It would be great if the code was distributed as object files with a
final make file to link it on your system.  That would take care of a lot,
especially all these stupid semi-static binaries.
 
> But #1 is hindered by the fact that Microsoft uses its own "standards"
> for everything, regardless of pre-existing standards, and for some
> reason everyone considers #2 to be absolutely scandalous.

Winsock - hmmm...TCP/IP???   CIFS - hmmm...NFS???   Win95 -
hmmm...MacOS????  

The sad thing out there is there are probably people who think that
Microsoft invented TCP/IP with Winsock.  To quote Steve Jobs "Microsoft
has never had an original idea in their life."   #2 is scandalous for two
reasons - secrets are lost, and instead of just finding bugs, people find
terrible code :)

I maintain our campus student system, which we get 100% source code for -
I'm not sure it's an end-all solution, because now instead of having to
just deal with the bugs, we also have to deal with bad source code that
doesn't compile.  But any decent company...
 
> Maybe Java will catch on.  Java applications have all the nice things
> (except source code) that I mention above, as long as they stay away
> from things like ActiveX.  (If applications DO start using things like
> ActiveX, then everything is back to the way things are right now.)

For Java I would like to refer you to the web.  Here we have a standard
way of looking at documents (running programs in Java's case) that will
work on any platform as long as they have a browser (Java runtime).  Then
what happens - people decide that by itself it is boring as hell.  But
when you start adding plugins, then wow - cool.  So what happens - you
have Shockwave, Quicktime plugins, etc... that are only on the Windows and
sometimes Mac platform.  Or you have all these extensions like RealAudio,
and Vxtreme.  Then once again, everything is just for Windows and
sometimes Mac, and this standard way of doing things has left everyone
else with nothing.

Yes - ActiveX is evil, but Java will become the same thing because MS has
so much market share and influence.  When they make the Java MS Office,
which will for sure be full of ActiveX controls, and Corel wants to try
and compete, they'll probably need to add these "powerful" controls to
keep at the level of MS, and once again, every non-windows user is given
the shaft by Gates.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

--
Dan Newcombe                                      newcombe at mordor.clayton.edu
"Maybe you were always beyond my reach and my heart was playing safe, But was
 that love in your eye I saw or the reflection of mine?"  --Marillion