Re: Groups

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

> 
> What happened to [subject]? Did the idea die or...?
> 

I was thinking we need rethink many things.

1) We need to answer a basic question who is why try to build Indy?
We have to face those people who don't want Linux 'dumbing down' and
also those people who will tell us that we should atone for our sins
and sacrify three beefs in the altar of such or such distribution.

I have developped an argumentary against these two objections.
Against the Linux elitists I remind them that elsitist Linux means in
fact Linux for those people with assisted training and/or university
degrees and et the end (because it is hard to go to University for the
poor) that the rich gets Linux anxd the poor gets Microsoft a thought
every lover of Robin Hood movies finds repellent.

Against those who will ask us why another distribution instead of
contributing to an existing one I have prepared another argumantary
exposing the negative influence of marketing considerations
(attractive features have higher priority than useful but unglamorous
ones) on commercail distributions while without the profit incentive
the free ones have had a tendency to be developped more for the
pleasure and the pride of their developprs than with the goal of
helping users.  This means that there is a need for a distribution who
is not influenced by marketing thus free but whose developers have
enough empathy with the suffering Linux user (perhaps, but not
mandatory because themselves learned Linux the hard way) to look at
helping people over building  a nice cathedral.

I will post something more detailed shortly.


2) Increasing the distance respective to RedHat.

I have thought in if we should pick another base but I am not happy
with the alternatives.  Either they are not GPLed, either they are
elitist and there are few books about them (and we target people who
_need_ books), or their future is uncertain or they are far too
marketing-driven to my tastes.  Names withheld to protect the guilty.

However RedHat insists in a server orientation so I think we should
increase distances.  First of all by removing some software in RedHat
who does not fit in our agenda.  For now I am removing all the
cluster-related software.  I am thinking in cutting deeper but we will
need a group for this.  I have written (today, still not tested) a
program who reads a list of software to move out of the distrib and at
the same time removes any mention about them from the comps file.

In the future we could consider replacing their installer (Caldera open
sourced its installer and it is leagues ahead RedHat's)


3) We need a real orgaization with people in chrge of a domain and so on.


About groups:

-Distribution group: This one should care about hacking the
 inqstallation and making the distribution maintainable (for instanxce
 writing software for merging the base distribution with Indy
 specifics: eg Indy's lilo is not the same than RedHat's

-Software group: Establishing what software should go in Indy I think
 people who don't have much time could apply for this group, we would
 also need a person or two with time in their hands.

-Translation group: Translating the install requires studying gettext.
 Translating RPM descriptions requires nothing.

-Building and polishing: For one part it is building RPMS.  This
 requires defining the compiling enevironment and the person or
 persons who make the final build having a prtaition who exactly
 matches this environment.  However it is possible to package RPMS
 without this environment and then send the SRPM to a person who will
 recompile it.  Another part in this group would be the polishing of
 applications: ensuring there are sensible defaults, that it inserts
 in menus, that it uses the good fonts instead of the bitmap ones,
 that info pops up under the user's nose if possible and so on.  Task
 is study the application and the files who determine its
 behaviourmodify them and pass them to the person maintaining the RPM.

-Web site group: This is not about putting nice graphics into a page
 but about including announces or important decisions in the list.

-PR group: Writing about Indy in ezines and magazines.  another task
 would be to manage realatios with mirror sites.

-Security group: Presently held by David Webster.  For security announces.


Now we need people volunteering for these groups or suggesting a
duifferent organization.


A personal note: I have got ADSL a fews days ago.  It is not only tren
times faster than a modem, in France it is also far cheaper than
dialup access and in addition there is far fewer latency for ssh
sessions across the Atlantic (modem access meant 4 or 5 seconds
between the moent I typed and the moment it displayed and that meant )
and it has a positive influence on moral.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

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