On Mon, Sep 27, 1999 at 02:23:03PM +0200, Federico Di Gregorio wrote:
> Scavenging the mail folder uncovered Siggy Brentrup's letter:
> > There should be one for the main distribution. Assume I want to go
> > into the CD business providing support for packages in the main
> > dist. No major problem with most of the packages, but I am not willing
> > to support packages with philosophical, political or religious
> > contents.
> >
> > The way it is, I can't say "Support for all of Debian's main dist".
> >
> > My point is, should there be subjective stuff in the main dist?
>
> I don't know the answer but having non-doc (in the sense of
> non-application-that-is-in-main-doc) stuff is bad. What if I package
> the 3 CD set of US maps that is publicy available? That is about 1.8Gb
> of sources plus 1.8Gb of .debs for about 3.6Gb of ftp space... and
> nobody can tell me don't do that!
OTH, everybody can say you to not do that. The only point where policy
say you not to do something, is about dfsg-freeness. Even there, they
just say you to put them in non-free. What protect Debian from abuse
is the eye-balls of everyone. The same ones who say: "He! new-maintainer
take too much time!" or "What all those packages waiting so long in
Incoming?" or even: "Should we consider a free client of a non-free
server to be non-free?". I have a great confidence about hearing the
herd of kitten if you really upload the US maps, I'm just not sure
if they'll just say you to remove it or ask you to upload the more
recent version ;)
>
> What about having Debian be an OS+apps and have SPI found a *new*
> association for the distribution of free *data*? The data can even use
> .deb format, but Debian/doc is definitely the wrong place for
> religious/political/etc stuff. IMHO!
Why can't Debian just can't be this association? That's right that
main/doc is missed named and that we need a better sectionning
(main/graphics is even worst and what about x11). When I submit
data, I knew that it was just a patch, an incomplete solution to
the problem. It has to be easily realisable, implementable and not
too much contrainst so that it will add to Debian without removing
anything. IMHO, that's why it was accepted with so few discussions.
It was just a first step but now it's done. Debian will continue
to grow and we will handle it better then some company that forget
their starter consumers to go for the mass market. It's simply not
the way we work.
Debian is one of the most interesting example of distributed development
I can see. A very flat organization, based on volunteers, distributed
around the world and with a organizational system to make it shame most
of the R&D directors of TOP500 companies. Sure, Debian don't follow
the same model but, that's ok: we don't even share the same goals; they
want to make money, we want to make the best distribution and have some
fun by doing so.
We have some fantastic tools: the build system, dpkg/apt, debconf/menu &
consors, the cd-scripts, dinstall, the BTS, the vote system, the build
queue, the policy modifications process, etc. All this tools manage the
growth of Debian fantastically. There still some bugs to work around
(growing numbers of critical bugs, lag in the new maintainer process...)
but new initiatives (qa.debian.org and the sponsorship page) proves that
we aware about them and that we are in the process of correcting them.
Maybe should we make more publicity about this aspect of Debian. I'll
just give a conference next month about the organization of Debian,
what we are, how we work and how can they work *with* us. A quick
poll of people around me, all implicated in Linux just show me a big
point: most (something like half the people) think that Debian is a
startup company like RH was a time ago. They can't believe that Debian
work the same way as Linux, even a more open one should I say. Maybe
ESR should brainwash them a little more about the OpenSource model ;)
To everyone, keep working on this, I'm pretty sure we can get out
of it *without* removing anything to Debian. Just make it even
better!
Ciao,
Fabien
{ who finally remove his Debian patriotic hat ;) }
BTW, why couldn't we make a Cecilia/RoseGarden/abc contest for a
Debian Hymn? The FSF has one, why not us ;)
>
> Ciao,
> Federico
>
> --
> Federico Di Gregorio [http://www.bolinando.com/fog] {Friend of Penguins}
> Debian GNU/Linux Developer & Italian Press Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Try the Joy of TeX [http://www.tug.org]
> -- brought to you by One Line Spam
>
--
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Fabien Ninoles Chevalier servant de la Dame Catherine des Rosiers
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WebPage: http://www.tzone.org/~fabien
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