Having a distribution that has a "base", and several add on "repositories" that you could mix and match from would be very nice, although I'm not entirely sure how practical it would be given that you'd end up back in dependancy hell, except instead of having dependancy problems with individual packages, I've not got them between repositories (if I have say "base" + "Gnome" + "KDE", then if Gnome wants a newer version of some X library and KDE doesn't, then I'm hosed.)
Not true. The dependancy graph should be like a tree. With dependancies going down and sideways only. Ie, KDE can obly depend on a package either A) supplied by a sibling repository or B) supplied by the base repository.
Ahh yes. Now, I don't care much about my desktop. I want xterms, mozilla, xchat, tkabber and something to play music (rythymbox/xmms/whatever). What I do care about is libraries for things I want to code for, and (mostly networking) programs. I've never really found Redhat to be anywhere near useful for this.
Well development is an entirely different kettle of fish. When you're developing an application you need to know what your target platform is. If your target platform doesn't provide dependencies directly then you need to either provide the dependencies statically or provide convenient ways of satisfying those dependencies to your target users. If your target users are Debian users then this isn't a problem. If you want your app to run on more than just Debian you have more work to do.
I've only once or twice had people ask if I've got an "rpm" for a program I wrote. Almost always they want it for mandrake (?) and for software I've got .spec files for, noone has ever commented on their quality (or at least, hasn't mentioned it to me).
Most people don't understand binary packaging issues well and as long as it just installs they tend to be satisfied.
I'm also not particularly amused with the idea of having to package the same software for Debian/Redhat/Mandrake/slackware/SUSE/etc. I package for what I use, if people want to package for other distros and send me a diff, I'm more than happy to include it. Noone has seriously complaind about this approach (other than people saying "You should package for other distros!" on princple). Mostly this is because, I suspect, I write software that people tend to want to compile from hand anyway.
It is all about your target audience and how niche your app is. The more relevant the app is to a broad user base and the better the user support a developer provides is the more likely the app will get used. OSS is not different from commercial software in this respect. OpenSource lets you pool effort though. You're only interested in packaging for debian because that is what you use. I on the other hand am more interested in RH (and derivatives). I generally can't be bothered with apps that I can't at least get a half decent src RPM for. If you wanted to increase the ease of install to more RedHat users you'd have to get someone on board the development team to help create good RPMs for your package and it's dependencies. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver.jones(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com