[colug-432] February COLUG Meeting Announcement

[William Yang]

On 02/20/2012 10:35 AM, Rick Troth wrote:
> Having encountered widely varying opinions about source build, what do
> YOU say about it?  Why do we use FOSS?  If we *use* FOSS, does that
> mean (to you) that we should actually *build* from source?  Why and
> when should we and should we not [re]build from sources?
> 
> I'm priming the pump for this pres.  Will be showing my own how-to,
> which to me seems like do-it-in-your-sleep easy.  But part of the talk
> will include the rationale for going this route.  Lemme know what
> questions or points come to mind.

Alas, I will not be at the meeting.  But I'd like to tell a short story
about compiled code.

I used to use Gentoo.  When I selected Gentoo (over RedHat), it was because
the platform was built from source, leading to an optimized, efficient
platform.  Or so I thought.

After 4 years, I transitioned pretty much all of my systems from Gentoo to
Ubuntu.  My move away was not caused by the breakdown at Gentoo:  I'd
discovered that the act of patching a system had become onerous, expensive,
time-consuming and inefficient.  Long compile times were the #1 reason why
I felt I needed to move to something else: I was tied down by the
requirement to compile.

I still use source to build custom appliance operating system images.  But
for day-to-day use, including reasonably standard servers and workstations,
I think it's a poor choice to base operations on source-compilation.  That
approach, which took hold in the 80's and before in *IX environments, isn't
an approach to modern computing.  It makes your environment optimized and
efficient on your existing platform, at the expensive of losing nimbleness
and the ability to move and change, as legacy code holds you down.

Source is best used for customized applications, areas where superfine
tuning is required or behavior needs to be different from in the box.
However, there's been a substantial move toward "off the shelf" software
for more than a decade in many environments... and the reason why is
because it's cheaper, faster, and more efficient.

(Free) Open source is good.  It gives you the opportunity to understand
what your system does.  It gives you the ability to control the behavior of
your system when you need to.  But it's not mandatory to build from source.
 There's going to be a balance based on interest, time, willingness to futz
with internals, cost, and other factors.  I do think people who work with
systems regularly need to understand how to compile software, and it's part
of my program when I train others in systems operations and administration.
 But as a business matter, compilation is typically a cost center.

	-Bill
-- 
William Yang
wyang at gcfn.net