Who maintains RPM? [LWN.net]

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 23, 2006 7:19 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
In reply to: Who maintains RPM? by drag
Parent article: Who maintains RPM?

It's in the LSB so all distros have to support it, right?

This is a slightly ridiculous situation. Back when the LSB idea came up, everyone did use RPM, except Debian which only a few geeks used anyway, and Slackware which hardly had package management. So requiring RPM in the LSB may have made some sort of sense.

Today the situation is different: most of the newer distributions (Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, Mepis, ...) have chosen to base themselves on Debian and its package management system. Clearly this was for technological reasons and not for marketing reasons. It makes no sense to require these distributions to support RPM. Debian is a standard of its own, that has survived and thrived on its technical merits, not by being imposed top-down.

A few years ago, Debian had a forbidding reputation, and RPM hell was one of the factors that drove me to FreeBSD. Then I discovered (via Knoppix) how easy Debian really was, and moved back. Now I use Ubuntu.

If Red Hat and SuSE could figure out a way to switch to deb and apt, and abandon RPM altogether, the linux world would be a better place.

to post comments

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 23, 2006 11:39 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Well Debian does support installing RPM packages, though, through the alien stuff.

As you see in the wajig list-command output it has a couple (somewhat redundant) commands for handling rpm format.

So I figure that Debian-based systems should support it also, even if it's not in a official capacity.

For ISVs then it would make sense to target RPM for packages. Debian supports it, Debian-based systems should support it, but Redhat and such don't support Deb packages.

What is left is just making it sane to use in non-native-rpm systems for the average end user.. if a thing is ever possible. (which I have no idea about)

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 23, 2006 17:46 UTC (Wed) by nevyn (guest, #33129) [Link] (3 responses)

This is a slightly ridiculous situation.

Not at all, if the software is open source debian can just package it themself. If it's closed then Red Hat and Novell still have almost all the market, and debian/ubuntu have alien support.

If Red Hat and SuSE could figure out a way to switch to deb and apt, and abandon RPM altogether, the linux world would be a better place.

Why would they screw their customers over like that, the deb format is not any better than the rpm format (has Suggests/Enhances doesn't have file deps). The dpkg tool is much worse than rpm, IMNSHO, and the higher level tools (yum, apt-get, smart, open-carpet, etc.) are all roughly equal technically. Also (from a long time Red Hat/Fedora users POV) the base system in debian is very different, and one of the main reasons I don't use ubuntu.

Ubuntu didn't base off of debian because it was technically better, they did it because it was bigger ... plus IMO because there were more unemployed people who know debian well than know Red Hat well, which you might take as a flame but I can't help that...

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 24, 2006 2:12 UTC (Thu) by robla (guest, #424) [Link] (2 responses)

Ummm...please. Ubuntu is based on Debian because Mark Shuttleworth is a long time Debian guy, and he writes the checks. I'm sure at least some of the reason /why/ he's a long time Debian guy is because he felt as though Debian was a superior starting point, though I don't pretend to speak for him. Your assessment, however, is highly implausible.

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 24, 2006 12:35 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (1 responses)

Not only that, but Debian is 100% developed, directed, and controlled by volunteers. They have a robust constitution and regular public elections, open to all developers. Anyone in the world can become a Debian Developer. The distribution is completely free AND completely open. Red Hat and Fedora are absolutely inappropriate for serving as the basis for a major new Linux distribution such as Ubuntu.

Who maintains Debian?

Posted Aug 31, 2006 21:31 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

> a robust constitution
I've heard differing opinions from Debian folks, regarding "robust".

> Anyone in the world can become a Debian Developer.
Especially if said anyone is to become the first DD in the country. Well here in Ukraine, they've trusted ALT Linux security officer who has signed my key before, and so I've signed the particular person on meeting him (it appeared we've graduated the same university, even). Wonder if this was not the case.

Just to put some sane facts over your mad science. :)

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 24, 2006 12:42 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

The whole LSB-uses-RPM thing is just a tempest in a teapot; even the Debian developers don't care about this. Why? Because an LSB-compliant package is so restrictive that it completely does not matter which package format it uses. The legal fields in an LSB RPM package are a strict subset of "full-blown" RPM. They can list dependencies ONLY on a very limited set of prerequisites: basically only on a package representing the LSB version (and maybe other 3rd party LSB packages; it's been a while since I read the spec). As already mentioned, the LSB does not require that the underlying distribution use RPM or any other particular package management tool: only that there be some application "rpm" which can install and uninstall packages that use this specific subset of RPM.

So yes, it may be slightly more work for non-RPM-based distributions to create a translator between RPM and their native package management, but it's certainly not difficult and, in fact, has already been done with alien.

So, it's just not worth arguing about this, or expending any effort to change it. IMO.

Who maintains RPM?

Posted Aug 30, 2016 17:07 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> If Red Hat and SuSE could figure out a way to switch to deb and apt, and abandon RPM altogether, the linux world would be a better place.

And then we end up with the same nightmare that we had between Red Hat and SuSE. Where the RH/SuSE debs will have clashing names for different contents etc etc. And who gives way and changes packaging policy?

Can anyone name a apt/deb distro that is NOT a debian derivative? They've inherited the original packaging/naming policy, and can be declared out-of-line if they're different. When SuSE adopted rpm, they had an existing policy. If RH/SuSE adopt apt/deb, they will bring that same problem to the .deb world.

Cheers,
Wol