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Re: Features only a developer could love



Bruce Perens <bruce@pixar.com> wrote:
> From: Fabien Ninoles <ninf01@GEL.USherb.CA>
> > If USERS can have 
> > choice between upgrading by binaries or by source, this can only make 
> > debian more attractive and useful.
> 
> I think we may have a problem here. Debian's development is driven by the
> developers. This is at once an advantage and a pitfall. Developers tend to
> add features that only developers could love.
> 
> I sincerely doubt that there is a significant number of people who want to
> build their entire system from source (10 people will chime in "I do!", but
> you are the developers). However, I agree it's nice to know you _could_
> build the system from source, and we need that capability to do ports
> anyway, so we're working on it.
> 
> This reminds me of Richard Stallman's imperative to distribute all
> executables unstripped so that they could be debugged immediately by the
> user if there was any problem. A feature only a developer could love.
> 
> Please try to put yourselves in the heads of the users when you consider
> how to direct the development of the system. For them, Debian is not an
> end in itself but a tool to get work done.
> 

Ok first that whilst developers probably do tend to add features that only 
developers could love, if a CVS tree *only* benefited developers this would 
*not* be a reason to implement it (as long as there was no significant impact 
on non-developers). If the Debian developers have a powerful developement 
environment then it will be the users who benefit in the end. Furthermore some 
users are not Debian developers but they may use Debian as a linux 
developement platform, I think they may like a CVS tree.

Now for users that are neither linux developers or debian developers I think 
there is still a need for CVS.  As I've said before a build from source tree 
is handy, but when done with a CVS becomes a powerful security augmentation 
tool.  Users may or may not wish to build from source, many users may wish to 
have very tight controls over what type of upgrades they let into their 
system.  None of the checksum/pgp signing systems I've seen mentioned 
guarantee untrojaned binaries (decrease likelihood but not guarantee), those 
users with high security needs require a highly visible upgrade trail.

Then there is the ability for *users* to install any release of debian they 
choose.  *Users* also might like downloading <1k cvsup diff next time the GCC 
maintainer address changes rather than a several meg binary (yes this type of 
thing could be done with current source tree, but the tools to do this are 
vaporware right now, CVS and CVSup are existing code with many years of 
developement, use and bug removal ).

*Users* might also like being able to keep a seperate developement branch on 
their own system for some special purpose setup which intergrates seamlessly 
with the official release, CVS can do this.  Rather than being fascistly 
central CVS allows a "standard" distribution to work in harmony with 
individual users non-homogeneous setups (of course users can chose to stick to 
the "standard" vanilla distrib if they like), IMO things don't get much more 
decentralised than this, whilst still keeping a coherent "standard" 
distribution.

Richard Jones.



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