Subject: Re: Linux "bazaar" model (Re: Beta-19 and configurations....)
From: [email-masked] (Christopher Faylor)

15 Feb 1998 15:56:38 -0800
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]

>   Are you under the impression that linux somehow sets itself up automatically
>   out of the box?  It doesn't.  In the rawest form, you download sources
>   from ftp.kernel.org and extract them onto your hard disk using (gasp)
>   tar and gzip.  Some package package maintainers have made things easier
>   with various tools (e.g., RPM).  These are third parties however and are
>   not part of the "official" linux distribution system.
>
>Linux installation is *far* more automated these days.  You can
>essentially start from scratch with the CD and install a complete system.

Yup.  If you go to a commercial site and purchase or download a CD, you
can get an automated install.  I believe I mentioned that.

Are you advocating setting up some sort of RedHat like site to package cygwin
installations?

>   Frankly, if a potential developer can't handle the chore of setting up
>   his/her system to build the cygwin sources I can't imagine that they would
>   be able to contribute to the project in any meaningful way.
>
>It is not the developers.  It is the set of skilled users (like myself)
>who want UNIX functionality, but are far too strapped for time to wade
>through loads of information to get a usable system.  I have been a Unix
>developer at many times in the past.  I understand that there is a lot
>of things that *can* be configured, but that is not a necessity.  I say
>again, try the UWIN distribution from AT&T.  This is a model that I
>think would be a good one to emulate.  It installs out of the box and is
>immediately useful.  It is not quite as functional as gnuwin32 has the
>potential to be, but it is much more convenient.

Is there a problem with running the 'CDK' program?  It seemed to do a
pretty good job installing the tools the last time I had to run it.  You
certainly **don't need** the cygwin sources to perform useful work.  If
you are talking about the fact that you have to set environment
variables to get GCC working then that is entirely another matter.  I
would agree that setting those is a pain but it is really a minor pain.
Finding the exact information that is required is the biggest problem.

Obviously, since you are referring to UWIN as a model, we are talking about
different things.  UWIN does not release sources.  I am referring to making
a contribution to the CYGWIN project.  I still maintain that if you are
not willing to figure out the layout of the CYGWIN source tree (which is
really not at all different from a standard GNU distribution) then you
probably will not be making substantial contributions any time soon.

I'm not trying to belittle anyone's ability.  I'm simply stating what
I believe is a fairly obvious fact.

>   The release maintainers *could* take some time to set things up so that
>   even the most unskilled newbie could set up his system to build the sources
>   but what is the benefit of that?  I'd rather that time was spent improving
>   cygwin, not diddling with scripts to make life easier for people who don't
>   want to or can't understand how to set up their systems themselves.
>
>Again, we are talking about taking the knowledge that goes into all of
>the FAQs floating out there and coding it into installation scripts.
>Yes, this is a lot of work.  However, if it is done properly (and Linux
>does this), then you will get an order of magnitude more users.  When
>looking for bugs, this can be a good thing.  Note that not all of the
>people who are calling for complete installation are newbies.  Note that
>outside of the working gnuwin community, gnuwin has a reputation as too
>raw to be useful.  This is *NOT* a criticism of the package, merely a
>criticism of the set of things provided and the difficulty (and skilled
>time) involved in setting it up.

Again, this is entirely another matter.  I am referring to the fact that
the majority of traffic of this list is either criticism, newbie questions,
or "it seems to me" pontification.  There is a vanishingly small amount
of actual insight into the actual package.

You're doing it yourself.  You're pointing out a problem.  I'm not
seeing any solutions besides "If they got their act together, then
things would be better." If there is a lot of information floating
around in separate FAQs, why not volunteer to consolidate the
information?

>   Anyway, you're *still* not getting it.  If you think this is a good idea,
>   why not take it upon yourself to set up some kind of auto-install system?
>   Submit if for approval to the mailing list.
>
>See past couple of messages about the problems involved with integrated
>user-community contributions.

Are you assuming that I'm not reading this thread?  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

>   As far as including editors, etc., with the package; I'm still in favor of
>   the linux model.  You can download whatever you want from the net.  Great
>   effort should be taken to ensure that UNIX applications compile "out of the
>   box" under CYGWIN.  Then, if you need an editor, download the sources and
>   compile it.
>
>You are not getting it.  Why not have a complete, usable release?  You
>are still caught in the "GURU" Unix mode.  You are no-doubt a top-notch
>hacker (probably make 3 times my professorly salary).  However, it is
>this kind of mentality (among other market forces) that have doomed the
>Unix community to being a serious minority, *DESPITE* superior
>technology.  Sigh. 

Sigh indeed.  Why don't you define "usable release".  Perhaps I'll agree
with you.

And, let's leave my salary and my guru or non-guru status out of it.  I
have opinions.  You have opinions.  I possess sufficient imagination to
comprehend other viewpoints and to understand that there are other people
in the world with more or less experience and more or less intelligence
than I.  I'll assume the same of you.

>   It would be nice for Cygnus to provide a web site with ported binaries
>   but it should be no great hardship to use other sites that are
>   frequently advertised on the mailing list.
>
>Yes.  It is a serious time commitment.  And if there are 12 little
>configuration things that need to be done to get something working,
>chances are that most people will forget 1 of them and spend hours
>debugging as a result.  This is not something that I want to spend my
>time on, especially since someone already figured out what is involved
>in getting things working.

If you'd like elucidate on the 12 little configuration things in some kind
of document, I'd be happy to critique it for you before you submit it to
Cygnus.

>   All that I'm saying is that this "Why don't they just..." attitude is
>   rampant on this list.  There are only a handful of contributors here.
>   Mumit Khan is a contributor.  Vischne (sp?) is a contributor.  Sergey is
>   a (BIG) contributor.  There are five or six other people who are
>   contributing code.  Everyone else is saying "It seems to me..." and
>   "I don't see why they don't..."
>
>Take all the people who are complaining, give them an organization and
>framework in which to contribute to a *COMMON* release, and you will see
>an explosion of usable code.  GNUWIN's potential has grown far beyond
>the couple of people who are currently contributing.  The type of
>organizational work required to really make this work is not all that
>fun, but if done properly, could really make GNUWIN be the flagship
>Unix-for-NT package.  And *THAT* would be worth the time and effort.  

I don't know what you mean by *COMMON* release.  I do know that Linus
Torvalds responds to the linux-dev-kernel mailing list pretty infrequently
and very rarely incorporates any patches found in it.  Only direct email
to him gets his attention and sometimes it takes multiple tries.

When I first started making contributions to CYGWIN, I sent mail to Sergey
with suggestions on how to improve (IMHO) his (then) bugview release.
He incorporated some of my changes but eventually he referred me to Geoff
Noer.  Geoff didn't always respond to my email (still doesn't) but I have
always assumed that he, like Linus, was inundated with mail.  And, I have
always tried to keep in mind that this is a free software project.  Cygnus
has, altruistically, provided this software to all of us.  I consider it
a privilege to be able to help improve the software.

The way *I* try to help is by providing actual working code.  As far as
I can tell, the way you are trying to help is by offering yet another
opinion.  I can see that you have given your opinion a lot of thought.
Yet, since it is an opinion it will, in the final analysis, only be
weighed in with the hundreds of other opinions on this mailing list.
Even if you are 100% right in everything you say, you are not really
distinguishing yourself by typing in your thoughts; not where it counts,
anyway.

Btw, Linux has a number of knowledgeable contributors.  There's (off the
top of my head) Alan Cox, David Miller, Bill Hawes, Stephen Tweedie,
Ingo Molnar, etc., etc., etc.  I sincerely doubt that any of them
required an automated installation script to perform useful work.  They
all have opinions and all of their opinions are given great credence
in the Linux developer community because they have backed up their
words with actions.

If you want to make a real contribution, I would suggest to you, and
anyone else on this mailing list, that you take a moment to think about
what kind of concrete contribution you *can* make.  A concrete
contribution could be a new install script, an updated FAQ or document,
a bug fix to cygwin itself, or concrete observations like those offered
recently by [email-masked].

A really invaluable contribution would be to *actively* maintain a
well-connected FTP/WWW site holding all cygwin supported/unsupported
software and documentation.

>p.s. Now just admit it.  Wouldn't you love to be able to just *get* a
>working package from someone without having to spend a day compiling and
>configurating it?  Why should the compilation/configuration process be
>repeated by everyone who does it?
>Can we not pool our collective resources??? 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That is exactly my point.  Thank you.

P.S. Configurating?
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