Patrick Lauer posted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, excerpted below, on Mon, 02 Jan 2006 22:52:43 +0100:
Lance Albertson wrote: >> When I say "we have a niche we're perfect at", >> I'm mainly referring to the source-based nature of our OS. There isn't >> another distro out there that does it as well as us and we should >> improve on that fact. Let the other distros get better at being >> binary-based. > Why would one prevent the other from happening? > Maybe someone finds an elegant way for "Binary Gentoo" ... should we > stop that person because it conflicts with a weird mission statement? I believe that's where the differing opinions begin to come in. Here's mine. I don't believe that Gentoo, /as/ /Gentoo/, will ever be very successful as an Enterprise distribution, and I don't think that it can every be very successful as a binary distribution, either. The things that make us, that is Gentoo, unique, and the best in our area, by definition are the /same/ sort of things that make a relatively poor enterprise or binary distribution. I'm all for a /separate/ enterprise effort based on Gentoo, and likewise, all for a /separate/ binary targeted distribution based on Gentoo. However, the goals are sufficiently different that I don't believe either one will work well /as/ Gentoo, or, in the event that it /does/ work well, it will change Gentoo into that image, and Gentoo won't continue to fit the current niche, a relatively fresh "source based" distribution for those who aren't afraid to take responsibility for managing their systems, as well as it does. What I expect will happen if we try, is that we won't be the sort of best of genre solution in those other areas, that makes Gentoo what it is today within its own "admin's source based distribution". At the same time, splitting our efforts in that direction will end up weakening the Gentoo we all know and love. Rather, I'd prefer an independent distribution, Gentoo based is great, some devs doing both is great, to do the enterprise stuff. Same with the binary. There are of course already several smaller Gentoo based mini-distributions, and I think that's the way to go. Doing it that way will prevent fuzzing up our image and our drive, allowing us to continue to be the best at what we are good at, while others get to focus on the stuff they can be good at. Some devs will naturally be attracted to one or the other -- not a problem. Others will find they can spend time on both (or all three) projects and drive up personal productivity, much as Greg KH seems to thrive on all his projects, managing to be more productive on all of them than many devoting all their time to the project. Again, that shouldn't be a problem, for those that can effectively handle it, and for those that can't, well, it's a volunteer situation, and as such, a natural solution tends to appear. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman in http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
