AppStream Ideas and Thoughts

[James Rhodes]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Enrico Zini <enrico at enricozini.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 10:55:36AM +1100, James Rhodes wrote:
>
>> What is the value of distributions?  The maintainers get to pick and
>> choose how they want the end user's system to run (by default).  I
>> think that's really the only value in distributions.  Occasionally
>> distributions also contain custom software (such as YaST).
>
> By all means, if you believe there is a better approach to software
> distribution, please feel free to work on it.
>
> Allow me to point out, however, that it would be beneficial for you, as
> well as for the level of the discussion in the list, if you tried to
> understand, or at least to respect, the vast amount of often thankless
> work others are doing.
>
> Like mail delivery or gas pipe maintenance, it tends to be the kind of
> overlooked hard work that nobody ever notices or cares about, until the
> moment when it stops.

Not trying to be disrespectful in anyway; that's just honestly what I
see when I install and use a distribution, compared to say building my
own using Linux From Scratch (in addition, the latter does not have an
implicit package management supplied).

By all means, please enlighten me on the other work that goes into
distributions.  If anything it'll give me a clearer view of the
situation.

Regards, James.