Datum: 30.07.2006 16:06
I run a debian package archive for some time now. It provides mostly Perl- and Shell-scripts, but only one meanwhile unmaintained binary package, which is a slightly re-patched apache based on debian's official source package.
Last night I spend "only" 5 hours for my first completely from-the-scratch binary package, the Debianization of a small piece of LGPL software from a partner firm EV-i.
Now I rest assured, that the difficulty and time consumation of packaging even a simple software (not to speak of office packages or KDE/Gnome additions) for even only 1 distribution is one if not _the_ major problem of the whole linux world.
Unfortunately, there is no solution in sight.
What might be solutions?
1. The LSB forcing certain binary standards.
Towards what versions of 1000 libs?
If we start to link everything statically, hat might work.
2. Build services provided by every major Distributor.
I.e., one uploads a tarball (that fulfills certain requirements) to one server per Distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE/Novell, RedHat, Gentoo, ...) and automatically gets binary packages for all their maintained releases and architectures.
Quite an effort for the Distributors, but imaginable.
3. Someone (OSDL, IBM, Sun, Oracle, LSB people, FreeDestkop Initiative, SourceForge, Google, ...) introduces an incredible perfect packaging system+service.
Dream on ...