Re: Debian and SimplyGNUstep

[Stefan Urbanek]

Hi,

(excuse me for top-posting)

Few observations:
- GNUstep wants its own directory system
- standard FSH dows not match it
- GNUstep has concept of Domains, where one can place apps and frameworks as he 
likes
- standard packagers do not know about Domains, only /
- gnustep is not just set of libraries and tools, the main power is in 
Frameworks and Applications (all of them as bundles)
- ... some thers

I think, that we are trying to marry two incopatible personalities from two 
incompatible worlds.

As it was said here before, I think it was Jeff, that GNUstep i, in this case, 
like Java. Environment in an environment.

Here are few questions that may seem to be a bit offtopic, but they are not:
- Are there debian/redhat/whatever packages for Java libraries and applications?
- Are there debial/redhat/whatever packages for (any kind of) Smalltalk 
packages?

Usualy no. You put all their stuff into predefined locations.

All mentioned SW suites (java and smalltalk) are environments by them selves. 
They have their own storage systems. GNUstep does too. Please, do not get 
confused by the fact, that it is using same file system as surronding 
environment/operations system!

I think that GNUstep can not be managed by any other package/software 
management tool outside GNUstep. Only thing that can be managed is GNUstep 
itself in the form of really basic set of libraries. Users have to realise and 
learn the fact that gnustep has a space of its own. Discussion about pakcage 
management of GNUstep applications and frameworks is IMHO a waste of time. Only 
thing that needs to be specified is proper definiton of GNUstep storage 
location. This should be configured at GNUstep.deb, GNUstep.rpm or GNUstep.exe 
installation. That is all what is needed. Other packages are going to be 
installed in GNUstep way. Btw. having .deb packages for GNUstep applications 
will not allow the beauty of user-domain installation. GNUstep developers 
should provide (from the beginning) .app.tar.gz packages, for example, instead 
of .deb or .rpm. Only GNUstep core should be OS based package. Other GNUstep 
libs should be converted to frameworks.

This will of course force GNUstep to try to create binary compatible packages 
for various systems and to create packages that are not installation-location 
dependant (because we have domains, right?).

Please do not say: "This is not possible, because...." or "This will not work, 
because of this stupid OS" ... but try to say "Hm, what we need to be able to 
have this?...and what we need to have it as simple as possible". From the 
beginning it might be full of hacks, but at least we will get functionality we 
want, not which is offered by an OS.

What do you say?

Best regards,

Stefan Urbanek

On 2003-10-10 16:32:29 +0200 Björn Giesler <bjoern@giesler.de> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> IMNSHO, one of the very greatest things about GNUstep/OpenStep/Darwin is that 
> many software packages come with their own container directories: Bundles, 
> Frameworks, Apps. These integrate very badly into standard Unix hierarchies 
> (/usr/bin/Workspace.app/Workspace? Please no), and should not be ripped 
> apart. From Apple's side, the trend seems to be towards this and away from 
> the old way (there is less and less in /usr/include and more and more in 
> /System/Library/Frameworks, for example).
> I personally think that this is a very big improvement over the standard Unix 
> hierarchy. It gets much easier both for people and for software to see what 
> is installed, check dependencies, etc. Package managers and installers get 
> much less complicated and much more reliable, to the extent of being able to 
> "uninstall" software by deleting a single item in the file manager. You can 
> move and copy applications and frameworks (e.g. from an NFS volume shared by 
> another application on the net) by copying a single item. Incredible amounts 
> of complication just fall away.
> 
> I think GNUstep should follow that path instead of going back to the Unix 
> hierarchy.
> 
> Hoping to actually make sense,
> Björn
> 
> 
> 
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