Still, the "it does not fit on a CD" strategy is in sharp contrat to the much praised sound technical decisions in Slack. Maybe there *is* a technical argument here, I'd love to hear it then. We all want Slack to be managed according to technical criteria, right?

Ewww.. good, I don't install it anyways and rarely ever go download to install. I try to stay Java free.. ;)

My remark was not so much about Java, which I personally despise. It has the speed of an interpreted language with the flexibility of a compiled one, and it's portability is close to a myth. I'm more the Python type of programmer. Nevertheless, I've had some use for the Java compiler in the past.

My objection is more about regression. OK, Gnome was or is going to be dropped, and the reason was stability and overall impact on the Slackware architecture. That is a sound and technical decision, and I follow Pat on that blindly. I suppose the same applied to swaret, for example.

But Java SDK is part of the distro today, does not influence the stability in any way and is of some use. My point is that people should be able to expect packages to be supported in the next version unless there is a real (i.e. technical) problem with them. Maybe a license problem, if it's a serious one. But certainly not a 'oh, my CD is full' kind of problem.

If there's no space, go and add a CD, we'll pay the price. Pat has a working toolchain for compiling all these programs (not speaking about JDK here, but in general). And we use a distro like Slackware to save us time, otherwise we'd be watching Gentoo compiles all day.

Just my 2 cents...

Well, there wasn't a thing in the world wrong with fvwm95 and he dropped that, too. He's pasture-ized some other things over the course of time as well, of course. It's a well-established process and even has a special directory for those that aren't junked immediately. Didn't hear anyone complain about fvwm95 being jettisoned without technical grounds.

Putting 30 megs on a third CD is silly. So do we bloat the distro to fill it up and excuse the wasted resources or do we hold the line and keep Slack slim? I mean, CDs don't grow on trees and bandwidth isn't free.

And as far as the previous complaints - the SDK was *60 megs* - almost twice as big as the next biggest package. I don't think we can dump the kernel and glibc and whatnot and it makes more sense to chop off the biggest when it can be replaced with a 30 meg package that provides 100% of the functionality to 90% of the people and is easily replaced by most programmer's who need it who obviously have the knowledge and tend to have the bandwidth. The next best choice is to pick several packages whose functionality might not be so easily replaced and piss off *several* groups of people.

I partly agree with something shepper said - I'd like to see Slack even slimmer. I don't think Patrick wants to mess with multiple flavors of Slack but it'd be fine by me if he just focused on providing the essential base and junk kde/gnome/xap and large chunks of the other sections. But that would *really* have people upset. (I would like X itself, though - X can be a b*tch.)

Look, he's going to be dumping my mozilla soon and that can be a royal pain to build, too - if I can face *that* with good grace, I think people can handle losing the SDK. ;)

Come on, we all know that software tends to get larger and larger. So there will be more and more packages left out in the course of time, is that what most people want? It's not about putting 30 megs on a CD, it's about giving the distro some air when DVDs and ADSL have become standards. This does not prevent putting the pasture stuff on a 3rd CD and leave it to those who want or need it to download or buy.

Slackware comes with 2 CDs of source, how often do you need those? I mean, all of them? If I need to rebuild ALSA after a kernel update, fine, but downloading the source from an ftp server would be much less of a waste than the 2 source CDs. So I'd agree to the point that Slackware could be distributed on less CDs, say 3, but replacing the source by additional packages and possibly only the build scripts in case you want to build a more recent version.

Yes, Slackware has made me sufficiently knowledgeable to do package builds myself. But that's a waste of time, and it will be without Pat's "seal of stability". I agree that we do not have to have 5 WM around. But there's no alternative for a JDK if you have to compile Java, is there?

Slackware is above all meant to be technical and stable. To me, stability includes having an upgrade path from version 1 to version 2. I cannot see the upgrade path for Java SDK but the DIY option. While this may be ok in this special case, again, I believe it's not the best philosophy.

Yeah, we do, and also know it shouldn't - at least not like it does. "Perfection is achieved, not when there's no more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away."

This people do.

The GPL says you always do.

We're worried about people being able to download 60 megs of an SDK and you want anyone who wants the source to download over a gig?

As you yourself pointed out, there is an alternative - people should be using other languages. In fact, this could very well be the 'technical reason' you're looking for: java sucks. Pat dumped it.

I dunno. I'm not really looking to argue. I have no interest in the SDK at all. Just an interest in people not giving Pat a hard time unless he really deserves. :)

Take care.

If you look at slackware as being a server distro then if you need java support you will most probably want items beyond those in the SDK.

As a java developer I keep upto date by downloading from sun, ibm etc. and don't mind if Pat chooses to drop the SDK in favour of the JRE. That said I have never used emacs so will not miss it if Pat removes it as well.

I doubt you want to end up with just a kernel and the minimum userland programs. Not if there is no central repository to add what you need and a certain guarantee that some packages will always be supported in this manner. Other distros have this, but not Slackware. It is not needed as long as the distro is basically complete.

Also, you are entitled to have the source according to GPL, but my question was "do you need them?". That is obviously no if you have the precompiled packages. And even if you do, you just download what you need, not the whole stuff. Anyway, my concern is not downloading stuff as you put it.

Even if Java sucks, people use it to write programs. That's a fact of life, and there are good reasons for it, even if you and me would not do that. You are not going to change this by leaving JDK out - this is btw not a technical but a political choice in that case.

I am not giving Pat a hard time, I do not expect him to read these posts and I will not mail him about this. I am just trying to express that I believe there is a lack of coherence in these choices. Or I simply don't get it.

Anyway, Slackware is not democratic, otherwise we'd be in the same trouble as Debian. My only freedom is to chose another distro, which I will have to do if I do not agree with the way things go. At which point I *will* mail Pat to explain why I quit. But that's not too close I believe.

Regards,
-pu

you HAVE to provide the source code when you are selling GPL software. you don't get to choose wheather you want to or not. if you sell GPL-licensed software and don't give the customer the source code, then you are violating the GPL license - PERIOD.

of course most people don't need the source code - that's why when you download slackware for free through the internet you can choose wheather or not you want to download the source code - but as soon as money enters the equation, the source must be present in the box.

I was not aware of that. Thanks for pointing this out.

You do not have to supply the source code with the sale of a cd. It only needs to be "available".
Look at Linspire. They have been dancing around with the GPL and no where on their cd or on any computer that comes preloaded with the Linspire OS will you find any source code. Although it is hard to find, source code is available on their web site.

from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html :

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Seems to me that shepper is right.

Actually, I would. I'd very much like to see the first disc being nothing but precompiled kernel (2.4 and 2.6 as a choice), compilers, libraries, network connectivity, X (you can use TWM for what I'm suggesting), and Firefox/Thunderbird (those chosen because of their size, not necessarily because of any preference). That's it, that's all.

Personally, I'd rather see a minimal distro CD like that of NetBSD. Download a 150-200mb ISO that'll get you online where you can download the specific packages you intend to use. And for those that want to buy the CD's, the apps come bundled on two CD's: one for developpers/servers, and one for a desktop environment.

Think about it a sec: I dunno about you, but I'm not using KOffice or AbiWord. I'm not using emacs or vi. For plain text editors, I actually prefer nano, but I'm willing to put up with pico. For office productivity, I use OpenOffice.org. I'm not too fond of Gnome, and I have absolutely no need for development environments because all of the development/coding I do is with php. The only "server" I need on my laptop or desktop is Samba, and that only so that I can connect to my network drive. I don't need the BSD games. I don't even need CUPS since my printer is a piece of crap whose performance under Linux would be improved by blast of 20-guage.

Now think about how much bandwidth I have to waste to get what I want out of Slack. How much of my bandwidth, and how much bandwidth belonging to the websites hosting it. The bandwidth isn't a problem if you're going to buy the CD's: it's practically the same if they're sending you 1 CD or 5 of them. If I'm downloading it, it's a whole lot of extra time for stuff I don't need and have no intention of ever using.

Why on earth should I have to download 1.3GB of stuff so that I can use 350mb of it? The base distro CD should be that 200MB of it that every single installation of Slack needs, and no more. The rest of it should be on separate CD's, or as individual packages you can download. Of course, that's only my opinion.

yeah, it makes sense... my bad...

so basically one doesn't have to actually include the source code in the box, as long as one includes at least a URL or something where one could get it... and according to this, i think one could even legally charge extra for access to the code:
i don't understand what "for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution" means, though...

I think it means that you cannot make a profit selling CD's of source code because you would essentially be profiting from the work of the developers.

I believe that this condition has been pushed in the past. Linspire was trying to sell a single cd of OpenOffice for around $20 U.S. This seems a little steep when one considers that a four disk set of Fedora 3 can be had for around the same price.