Re: Dependencies and RPM hell, revisited - time for a fork?

Thus quoth Robin Green on Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 01:29:02AM +0100:
> Those of you who participated in the long and repititive "dependency
> hell" / "packaging hell" / "RPM hell" discussions earlier on this
> list may be interested to the "ultimate solution" I've worked out:
 
Afraid I didn't. What problem are you trying to solve?
 
> It may seem wildly over the top to suggest that packaging problems
> are a good reason to fork a new OS. But I think it is a good excuse,

Linus said you're free to write an OS of your own if you like to.

> at least, to have some fun and experiment with different ways of
> doing things. My packaging solution necessitates getting rid of the
> standard /bin /usr /var hierarchy, and once you've taken a "radical"

Sounds like creating a huge problem to solve an extremely minor one. 

Apple Computer have done something similar. You get the Open Source
OS Darwin, but on top of that they created a GUI that is everything
but Unix-like. 

If you want to write an OS, maybe you could consider making it more
reliable than some existing ones (including Linux), by chosing or even
better inventing a programming language that is less error-prone than C.
Maybe use PL/I and join the born-again Multicians.

> There's no point in starting from scratch - the Linux
> kernel, especially 2.6, has hundreds of man-years worth of hardware
> support and tuning in it, which is priceless. But certainly some of
> the userspace stuff, like RPM, could be completely replaced with
> better systems and subsystems.

You could consider a kernel that is able to use Linux kernel modules
as device drivers. Just remember the GPL.

Kind regards,


Daniel von Asmuth

-- 
	If Gates had meant us to use Windows,
	He would have given us three hands.