[nylug-talk] I'm a Gentoo convert.

[Ruben Safir]

On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:27:43PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote:
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> On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:01:07PM -0500, Ruben Safir wrote:
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> > Your listening to what you want to hear rather than what I'm saying.  I'm saying that if you want to be
> > an expert in Apache, you can't avoid understanding its code base and its compilation tools.  Further more,
>      ^^^^^
> > in the spirit of Free Software, I highly encourage people to give it a try and to work with the source, even
> > build a custom module or two.  Its a lot easier than one would think and you'll be miles ahead from the
> > experience.
> How many folks want to be 'expert's in Apache. If not, they would use
> 'evil' packages. Packages like those in Debian-based distros are
> configured for common, everyday use-cases, so that average folks (not
> experts) can set up an actual website without months of reading books,
> going on IRC, reading 100's of HOWTOs on 'the apache distribution' and
> the basics of 'configure,make,make install'. 

It takes only a few hours of time to come to a basic understanding of Apache.
Surely that is not too much of an effort for an application that you expect to
work with for months, if not years.

I doubt that it is much more time than it takes to understand debians packaging
as was evident by the confusion that at least one local user had working through
the Debian packaging.  At this point, I'll stress that this is not cart blanche
critism of package management use for distro building.  In fact, its not a bad idea
to learn a few package management tools in great detail and to become expert (there is
that word again) in them and to be able to build custom packages for your distrobutions
of choice.


> They do not want to be
> experts. Will this limit what they can do (with apache)? Yes. But they
> just want to get one website up and not create the next JSON, Ajax,
> web2.0 site. Some of them love 'the spirit of Free Software' and still
> dont want to spend months learning to be 'experts'. Thank $DEITY for
> Debian-based distros!

I tend to not cut the rug from under people.  I asume that they have the
ability and desire to become more competetent over time and have a fundemental
desire to learn and improve.

Ruben

-- 
http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world  - RI Safir 1998 http://fairuse.nylxs.com  DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002 "Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME" "The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in our own society." "> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attacted at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt.  I guess you missed that one."