New Project: HOWTO Freely Obtain Our Source

Eric Christensen eric at christensenplace.us
Mon Jun 1 23:57:51 UTC 2009


On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 19:48 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 06:32:10PM -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > Eric Christensen wrote:
> > > 
> > > But as someone pointed out, that source RPM isn't in an exceptionally
> > > open format.  AND I know that everything Fedora produces isn't in RPM
> > > format.
> > > 
> > > Eric
> > > 
> > RPM isn't an open format as compared to what? It isn't a simple
> > format, but it is about as open as you can get. It is used by
> > multiple distributions, and is available for other systems besides
> > Linux. It is easy to access with the proper tools. For that matter,
> > you can install a source RPM just like you would install a binary
> > RPM. It will put the files in the default build tree for the user
> > doing the installation. You do not have to be root to install a
> > source RPM.
> 
> I think we should differentiate "open" in the sense of "documented,
> transparently accessible by any tool" (which the RPM format is) from
> "easy to understand for n00bs." (which it's not).

Yeah, I wasn't trying to suggest that RPMs aren't open, they just aren't
easily as understood as, say, the actual text from the CVS.

> > Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
> > would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
> > the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
> > stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
> 
> I think Eric was referring to our many hosted projects,
> infrastructure, websites, artwork, and so forth, where source is
> stored in some sort of source code control, but RPM packages are
> indeed not produced or published.

Yep, that's a large part of our missing openness.

> 
> Fedora produces a lot more than just the software packaged for your
> distribution!
> 
> -- 
> Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
>   gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
>   http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
>   irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
> 

Eric
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