On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 10:40 AM, Jon Masters <jcm@redhat.com> wrote:
On 12/06/2012 01:00 AM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-12-05 at 22:25 -0600, Michael Ekstrand wrote:
>> On 12/05/2012 03:06 PM, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>> Matthew Miller (mattdm@fedoraproject.org) said:
>>>> Three things:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Fedora is big enough that we have concrete situations where one size
>>>>    doesn't fit all. Puppet being broken on F17 (and probably F18 as well)
>>>>    is a fine example of something within the distro itself. And, as a
>>>>    platform for development, offering more version choices to our users
>>>>    would be a strength.
>>>
>>> <heretical>
>>>
>>> Well, then maybe Fedora's too big, and we should move to a model where
>>> Fedora is much smaller, and the grand Fedora universe contains things that
>>> are packaged *for* one or multiple Fedoras.
>>>
>>> </heretical>
>>
>> FWIW (probably not much), I also think this is a great idea.  It feels
>> strange to me that the same thing contains & manages everything from
>> base system (e.g. kernel through core GNOME stack) and add-on apps (say
>> Battle for Wesnoth, to pick a relatively obvious example).
>>
>> Now, there's a bike shed to be painted over where the lines should be drawn.
>
> We could draw them between Core and Extras!

:) Note that just because we got rid of Core doesn't mean that it was a
bad idea. Ubuntu even adopted a "Core" of their own a while back. Maybe
they'll have the same experience we had and get away from that, or maybe
Linux distributions should ultimately not be in the business of
providing all+kitchen sink. Speaking only personally, what I want is a
stable core platform of very limited size against which I can install
other packages and stacks.

Jon.

+1

Personally I think the line should be drawn similar to FreeBSD/Ports.  "Core" should be primarily OS kernel, shell utilities and C compiler.  Maybe X as well. Extras should be anything not required for an operational system even if installed by the initial install.  My biggest beef with Linux packaging has been that, by and large, all packages have to be upgraded in sync if you want to have a supported system.  Battle for Wesnoth shouldn't be tied to kernel updates.

--
Mark Bidewell
http://www.linkedin.com/in/markbidewell