[Zope] What causes the community to stall so often?

[Bill Anderson]

On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 12:15, Oleg Broytmann wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 06:53:01PM +0100, Lennart Regebro wrote:
> > From: "Ron Arts" <raarts@netland.nl>
> > > Most people want to install a binary package these days (in practice
> > > this means RPM).
> > 
> > Is this really true?
> 
>    Yes.

Let's  honest. One induces confusion by saying that there are no binary
packages of Zope for Linux. If someone *means* RPMs then they damned
well better say RPMS. While I have gone to the lengths of making RPMs
for a simple two or three file install, Zope is something I, as an avid
user of RedHat, sysadmin to dozens of machines over multiple sites, and
fan of RPM, do not want Zope RPMs. I tried them. They sucked. *every*
person I have introduced to zope, prefers the source to RPMs.

RPMs have one glaring problem. To be safe, you *must* either download
and rebuild a .src.rpm, or download both. Why? you may ask? Simple. You
can get a list of the file sin an RPM, sure. But you don't get to see
what scripts the rpm will execute when installing, without looking at
the spec file. Period. I've seen more and more abuses of scripts in RPM.
>From companie/people *assuming* that nobody ever installs rpms while in
X and launching w/o question or option an program they explicitly say
don't run in X (Since it is a guaranteed X-hanger), to things like
mailing emails with system info out.

Anyway, didn't mean to get out on a rant there. The point is, the
"desire" for RPMs of everything is not as prevalent as some people make
it out to be. Of course, there is also the issue of Joe User who doesn't
admin the machine wanting to install it locally; he can't use an rpm. he
either downloads the source, or the binary package (which happens to
include Python, IIRC).

> 
> > When I install things on unix, I usually download and unzip a tgz file, run
> > ./configure, write "make" and "make install", and I'm done.
> 
>    That because you manage only one computer. Think about poor sysadmins who
> maintain dozens servers on a site - they just don't have enough time to
> untar and compile all that crap...

Which is why I create a nice little shar file that does those steps for
me. Between that and ssh, is is no more difficult, and in many cases
less difficult, than RPMs.


-- 
Bill Anderson
Linux in Boise Club                  http://www.libc.org
Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.
Amateurs build Linux, professionals build Windows(tm).