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

[Peter C. Norton]

On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:45:47PM -0500, Ruben Safir wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:27:43PM -0500, Kevin Mark wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:01:07PM -0500, Ruben Safir wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > 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.

Ruben,

You're drifting again. You're mixing the common case of needing a web
server with the uncommon case of needing to follow some bleeding
edge. In addition, you're confusing a distributable package format
(rpm, deb, and the like) with compiling from source. You're also
ignoring that if someone needs to distribute packages (for deployment
QA control for instance) you can easily package your own, and apache
and other major software packages make it easy for you.

Again, this is a trope of yours. We've all heard it before and it's
not that convincing. I'm mainly out here to try to call you out, not
to try to change your mind.
 
> 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.

And more confusion from you. You cite a recent problem caused by
someone using a bogus package from a bogus source. Once Ron called
that out, iirc. the fix was to use the standard package.  That is
in direct contradiction to what you're trying to evangelize.
 
> 
> > 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.

You are indeed undermining newbies if you expect them to have to do a
build of apache, no matter how easy it seems to you after practice, if
you're going to respect their decision to put up a web page and help
them do it. If you don't see that, be sure that when you offer aid
other people will understand that officially. Telling people to do
more work than they have to, especially when it is completely
orthogonal to the work they *set out and intend* to do, is a variety
of bullshit that most people call right away.

-Peter

-- 
The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.