Re: Binaries from GNOME project

[Christian Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

Ben Bucksch wrote:

> Why did the GNOME project stop to provide binaries and directs users to
> one certain commercial provider (Helixcode) instead?

HelixCode was first out thats why.  The Gnome project will mirror binaries
from other vendors
as they become available. RedHat and Suse have both things underway.

But since some distributions have entered into contract with Helix their
GNOME packages will
probably be indentical to Helix's. This is true for LinuxPPC and
TurboLinux. There has also been talk about Helix doing the Debian packages.

One could of course have volunteers making packages, but the truth is that
these will probably be lower quality than the ones you get from Helix. ( I
know, because I tried to maintain a full set of TurboLinux RPMS on the
GNOME ftp site. Getting enough people with both the necessary experience
and time to do all distributions well in a timely manner is a very
difficult task. (I  for one know that I wasn't really well qualified at the
start, and my early packages suffered from it.)

Helix doesn't compete with the ditro makers, so there is not conflict of
interest here, and if a Helix competitor should arrive I am sure they to
would be given prominent coverage on the GNOME homepages.

I think the important thing to rembember is that even if the GNOME hackers
works for a lot of different companies like RedHat, Helix, Eazel and Suse
or on their own sparetime, we are all, users and hackers alike, one big
team striving toward a common goal; making GNOME the best desktop ever.

Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller