From owner-freebsd-libh@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 22 13:20:08 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-libh@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8993F16A4CE for ; Sat, 22 May 2004 13:20:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jkh-gw.queasyweasel.com (adsl-64-173-3-158.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net [64.173.3.158]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C1DE43D39 for ; Sat, 22 May 2004 13:20:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jkh@queasyweasel.com) Received: from [10.0.1.60] (adsl-64-173-15-102.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net [64.173.15.102])i4MKKhXC017453; Sat, 22 May 2004 13:20:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jkh@queasyweasel.com) In-Reply-To: References: <00d701c43c85$0ca36bd0$6501a8c0@yourw92p4bhlzg> <20040518171751.GA58065@shall.anarcat.ath.cx> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v618) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: <4CA59E9E-AC2D-11D8-871A-000A95AD47EE@queasyweasel.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Jordan Hubbard Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 13:19:16 -0700 To: Max Okumoto X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.618) cc: freebsd-libh@freebsd.org cc: timh@tjhawkins.com Subject: Re: question X-BeenThere: freebsd-libh@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Dedicated to libh code development List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 20:20:08 -0000 libh never lived up to its promise, that much is certainly true. The pity of all this is that there's never been the right sort of project management or even group consensus necessary to come up with any credible replacement strategy. Libh was never the cause of FreeBSD's lack of a good replacement installer, merely a symptom of the general lack of desire to deal with this problem space. People just keep doing (barely) evolutionary hacking on the existing tools and somehow perceiving this as sufficient and that's just a shame since it's limited FreeBSD's success (trying, as it has, to be "the mainstream BSD"). Meanwhile, the SuSE and Red Hats of the world continue to march on and offer installation and package management experiences that are at least an order of magnitude more extensive than FreeBSD's. Even Debian, who one could argue is more of a reasonable comparison to FreeBSD given that it's all been volunteer driven rather than subsidized by a corporate sugar-daddy, offers a better installation experience. Not an order of magnitude better, but they've at least put some effort into this area and appear to be continuing to do so. If libh is finally pronounced dead and buried without ceremony, I hope that this is announced a little more widely and with at least some attempt to provoke discussion concerning "if not that, then what? Nothing? Really??" - Jordan >> I feel that libh has taken too long the role of a failed promise for >> the >> FreeBSD community and rightly deserves to die now.