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Al C. wrote:

> This is written by an 18 year old software developer who has an
> interesting idea in 'autopackage.'
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2307&page=1

I'm not convinced, it just seems to be a more thought out RPM system really.
It won't really fix binary compatibility problems (if there isn't a package
for your particular GCC version your still stuck) and it won't solve
problems like project renaming (or major forks, xfree86 -> xorg for
example).

I can't see these problems being resolved and working neatly with the
variety of programming languages and system layouts around.

> This next piece talks about the Linux Desktop Base and also has some good
> ideas.
> http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/15/190253

This is closer to a real world solution, but politics will get in the way.

Personally, I'm beginning to come around to the Mono project's way of
thinking. It's more pure than Java (i.e. FOSS[0], unless Sun do the decent
thing and free up it's baby) and it kills two birds with one stone; makes
it easy for the programmer and makes it easy for the user.

So long as the programmers favorite language is supported by a Mono compiler
they're happy. And the users gets a unified way of installing and running
the program. Without having to worry about binary compatibility,
dependencies will become easier to handle. Of course it'll never be totally
simple, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Blumf

[0] I still worry about MS's patents though. Time will tell.

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