Re: Why Indy

[JF Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

> 
> Here's my attempt at poking at the text of this a little. Just a couple of
> very minor grammatical alterations and rewordings - most of the text is
> still the same. I may easily have introduced mistakes myself...
> 
> Hope this is of some use.
> 


I thank you for your efforts but best wait until the text is more or
less stable.

The text aims to state what makes Indy different from other distribs
and it tries to convince people so it probably should put griefs at
the head of the text and detail them later.

It also fails to state why we fight (or at least why I fight) 

I try to make Indy because I see the following problems with present
distributions: either they are commercial but then the need for making
money (otherwise they die) will have designers going for what is
flashy and gets you positive critics in magazines (like easiness of
installation) over what is useful but unnoticeable (like making the
distrib robust in face of errors made by root).  On another side the
free distribs (Debian is not the only example of free distrib) have
historically tended tendency to become 'hackers-only' distribs since
their developpers who have no money incentive have aimed more to
getting praises from their peers than for helping the unwashed masses
succeeding with Linux.  That is why I think there is a place for free
distrib whose developpers place Linux growth and helping users
(specially 'defenceless users') beyond their staisfaction as
developpers.  In other words build houses for the homeless instead of
a cathedral to impress other architects


Text also aims to claim the need for a "Linux culture" defined by
Linux users instead of accepted being forced to use programs who are
unadequate for Linux users.  As an example I strongly dislike those
people who claim we have to use VI. Problem is not VI by itself but
that the basic hypothesis of VI (a user who is not isolated, who gets
training before real use and then a peroid of practice before having
to take on system administration) is not valid in Linux so to hell
with VI being present in every Unix: we need our own _Linux_ standard
editor.  Indy wuill ship VI for compatibility but not will not make
make its use mandatory when you are in trouble.

Another thing I try to say is that even if you come from Windows and
know nothing about Unix you are people and have the right to ask Linux
being adapted to your needs.  Too often I have the impression that the
old Unix hands impose that the only people who influenece Linux
evolution are themselves.  And that means little attention to those
who are not in the classical Unix environement: enterprise, full time
system adminsitrators,  mainly server use.

And we also have to sink the 'macho culture'.  I have seen too many
articles where hard distributions where presented as professional when
in fact the reason they have a professional user base is not because
they are better for professionals but because they put an impssible
barrier to those who aren't.  And in fact all kernel development
leasders had abndonned Slackware by 1996: they had better things to
than configuring things by hand or fighting installation.  We must get
people seeing Indy or distributions with simialr caracteristics not as
newbie distributions but as distributions for people who have things
far too important to do to lose time with reading HOWTOs, recompiling
kernels or editing config files by hand.  That is why I downplayed
system adminsitration and why I emphasized the fact that a large part
of Linux public just cannot devote muvh time to its study

Now if someone who approves the general ideas in the text but is a
better writer than me could make something about it...

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org