Statically built apps around GNOME

[cykes]

Greetings all. I know this must have come up before but it's worth hearing again. I beleive it's in the best interest for all if some apps are built statically. Programs like evolution for example. I know the advantages of dynamic linking but in my quest to not have to go through an upgrade cycle to FC4 then FC5 while benifitting from new feature in evolution I had attempted to build certain pre-reqs of the gnome base. Hours later I realized time was precious and I risked screwing my current GUI (FC3).

Now if binaries existed for evolution ... static binaries similar to mysql and openoffice then this would not have been a problem. I do not believe it is in the communities best interest to tie in so many apps into the Desktop interface. New users for example will be forced to upgrade every 6 months just to get new apps such as evince to work without griefing oneself.

They are advantages to statcially linking. One main advantage is the ease of upgrades. Yes I know the downside as well . But they are 2 sides to a coin and I'd prefer the large apps to be independent of my OS. Or to at least have the choice of having them independent.

Anyway just a thought. Think about it. In 3 years you could be running GNOME 2.20 on FC3 with openoffice 6.0. Right now we're too tied in without even the choice to open up. I'm not a fan of GNU/Linux for desktops but this would aid the desktop push.

Server side however is a different matter.

[Jman]

Why evolution?

Note that if a lot of apps are compiled statically and size will go up even more than it is now, and may make for even more CDs. There are a lot of gtk apps.

I can understand you not wanting to worry about library versions, however.

File a bug at bugzilla.redhat.com to get the attention of the devs, but I believe they will cite size issues.

[cykes]

Originally Posted by Jman

Why evolution?

Note that if a lot of apps are compiled statically and size will go up even more than it is now, and may make for even more CDs. There are a lot of gtk apps.

I can understand you not wanting to worry about library versions, however.

File a bug at bugzilla.redhat.com to get the attention of the devs, but I believe they will cite size issues.

Evolution is 1 of many examples of apps that should be portable across installations. I don't think it is best that GNOME which is basically a GUI forces tie ins to applications. Why should my mail client, web browser, office suite etc be dependent on GNOME 2.xx ?

Firefox and the mozilla suite are good example of having available statically linked binaries. I can run the latest firefox, mozilla, thunderbird etc in FC3. Same for OOo, but evolution, gaim, gimp, file roller, evince and many more are tied to the GUI, so I can't upgrade these "major" apps to later versions without updating GNOME hence upgrade hell.

GUI tie in is dangerous for the GNU/Linux desktop future unless gnome upgrades can be made idiot proof.

It is true GNU/Lnux is on the cutting edge but either we stabalize our UI libraries or maintain compatibility in newer versions for programs that link to older versions.

Is this possible ? I'm sure it is.

Do I know how to do it ? No, but if I could I would have already done it.

Now obviously size is an issue, but weigh the pros and cons. Not many servers run Xorg or Gnome. If they do it's temporary for the admin to carry out specific limited tasks. So basically this would affect workstation and desktop users, who like myself will someday require the super cool new feature X found in the awsum latest release of App Y.

In the days of 100 Gb hdd, size is a non issue. Large ISOs or not we're already downloading 4 CD images or 1 DVD image. Place GNOME, KDE and Xorg on a separate CD as they are not necessary for server installs. Keep the FC core on CD1 (including xfsprogs).

Redhat is not forced to adopt this philosophy because many enterprise users of its RHEL are already using apps that are statically linked. RHEL is just the OS platform that interfaces with the hardware on these machines.