[cctbxbb] Debian Package

[Luc Bourhis]

Hi Nat,

> This is because we want people to be able to install and use CCTBX
> with minimal fuss, instead of wasting days trying to put together all
> of the third-party libraries and dealing with the inevitable
> compile-and-link problems.

I fully agree with you here. But when I work on Linux, sudo yum has proven times and again that it takes away those chores quickly and efficiently...

> So the libraries we distribute are not necessarily the same as what you'd be installing system-wide.

... However, that is the serious problem here indeed. 

The most serious issue is timing and funding here. I apologise if what I am going to write sounds blunt to Radostan, Baptiste, Marcin and the others but we are not paid to nicely package the cctbx. I would even go as far as to say that we are not paid to develop the cctbx actually. The guys in Berkeley are funded to develop Phenix; I get a salary from Bruker to write close-source software for them; The Olex2 team can only justify putting work that will shine through Olex2. At times, to meet our tight deadlines, anything goes: we happily make incompatible hacks at the environment we use and we don't have the time to do it nicely and to put the effort to discuss those changes with upstream. As time passes, and more and more code of ours depends on those changes, while upstream has more and more code that becomes incompatible with those changes, it is very likely that it becomes so difficult to change that situation, that it gets frozen for ever. It is everywhere to be seen in the cctbx.

Best wishes,

Luc

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