Draft of Announce

[Roger R Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

Here is the draft of the announce we're going to send out tomorrow.
Please comment, either on wording or content.

Thanks,
--Roger

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Subject: Announce: Simple End-User Linux (SEUL) Project

The SEUL Project is an organization dedicated to developing a
Linux distribution that presents a viable alternative to commercial
PC operating systems.  Currently based on RedHat Linux, the SEUL
distribution will cover many different aspects of Linux, including:

* User-friendly and consistent interface to package installation and
  management, file management

* Similar interface for administration issues, such as system log
  management, mail configuration, inetd services.

* An intuitive, familiar, and consistent help format (hypertext) with
  powerful search engine, extensive documentation, and tutorials for
  common (and uncommon) procedures.

* Automatic hardware recognition/support and easy configuration,
  particularly for X-windows and the kernel.

* 'Productivity Applications' -- word processor, spreadsheet, attractive
  and powerful database frontend.  Must be able to support binary file
  formats of commercial applications (particularly Word).  Internet suite.
  Compilers/Interpreters (C, C++, perl, Fortran, Java, ...)

* Extensive network support, especially autoconfigure and autoconnect for
  PPP links (by far the most common type of Internet connection these days).

* Publicity and Advocacy: writing clear and convincing documents
  describing why Linux is actually a viable choice for non-programmer
  home and office computer users.

We don't intend to write everything ourselves. If we can create a good
distribution simply by collecting and collating applications from other
groups (possibly with some reconfiguration to present a ccnsistent
interface), we win.  All software written specifically for SEUL will
be made available under the GNU Public License, and all other applications
that we include will be available under the GPL or similar (free) licenses.

SEUL is a relatively new project.  We have a membership list of about a
hundred, and the products we have so far include developer services, a demo
of the help browser, a draft of a document for why Linux is better than
other operating systems, an alpha of a system log monitor/filter, and some
other useful tools.  

If you want to provide any help or comments, please visit us at
http://www.seul.org or contact seul@seul.org.

Thank you,
--Roger Dingledine (arma@seul.org)

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