(I hope you do not get this twice on expert list)
---------
Hi, folks!
What follows is probably a single most important letter I ever posted on
these mailing lists, so please read it very carefully!
[ANNOUNCEMENT]
We (Mandrakesoft) are starting internal discussions about future of
our distributions NOW. We want you to take part in the process of
improving our next distro.
- NOW is a time to ask us whatever you want: tell us what you like, tell
us what you hate, tell us what you dream of!
- NOW is a time for you to influence the future company decisions - start
thinking, and if you come up with a briliant idea, post it here.
Starting NOW, I am going to stop sleeping, eating, or doing any other job
which would interfere with currently most important task: Making sure we
make the best decisions based on whatever input we can get.
[RULES]
* Basically everything you can think of is open for discussion, except
question of including non-free software in the core of our distro, which
is absolute NO-NO.
* Listen to what other people have to say. Try keeping the signal/noise
ratio as high as possible.
* One topic per e-mail and informative subject line help us a lot. ("125
Great ideas!!!" is a very bad subject line.)
* Please, try to avoid any kind of flaming on the list for the next 10
days.
* Finaly, If you have time and skills to pick up ideas from long
discussion threads and write a good summary, please do it, it will help us
a lot.
[TOPICS]
Topics we are particularly interested in at this moment include:
1) ergonomics: What should our user interfaces look like in the
future, what should we improve in our desktop configuration, which things
need polishing...
2) install: Which features of our current installation
program (DrakX) do you like, which features are you missing, what is not
clear enough? The same question goes for post-install configuration
tools.
3) packages: which packages to add, what to remove from the distro,
which subset of packages is really nessesary for a minimal install,
and which packages are "just add-ons"?
4) tools: which new tools (packages) should we develop ourselves, or
improve in case we are already developing them? Many great
programs already exist out there, so we really badly need to know
which important linux tools you still miss, in order to
concentrate on them in the future.
5) system policy: We want to make our system "logical" by following the
Linux Standards, and being consistent in the way
"things" (services, settings) are implemented. Tell us where
we need to improve.
6) security policy: Closely related to point "6". You know that we care a
lot about security, don't you? Well, the problem is choosing right
security settings for various situations.
(If you feel that we have forgotten an important topic, just start a
discusion on it, the list should not be taken too strictly)
################
I am going to spend a lot of time in reading "newbie" and "expert" mailing
lists during next two weeks. Guillaume will do the same on the
"cooker" list, and other members of the company may pop-up and take
part in discussion too, for topics they may be particularly interested in
(and if they get time to do it, our schedule is bursting).
At the end of the discussion cycle (in two weeks), I will try to write a
resume of what has been decided and share it with you.
yours
Denis Havlik
--
-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Denis Havlik <http://www.ap.univie.ac.at/users/havlik>
Mandrakesoft ||| e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Quality Assurance (@ @) (private: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
-------------------oOO--(_)--OOo---------------------
