Re: The early days of Debian (was Re: ideas underlying policy)

[Dale Scheetz]

You may find the first section of the Introduction to "The Debian Linux
User's Guide" (found at www.linuxpress.com) of some interest. It is titled
History, and was, for the most part, written by Ian Murdoch, so you can
trust its accuracy. ;-)

Luck,

On Tue, 5 May 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On Tue, May 05, 1998 at 12:10:54AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> > Actually, when Debian was formed it had only one developer,
> >  and no one could contribute packages, since that would have diluted
> >  the distributions tight integration. This bazaar thing has evolved. 
> 
> I remember Debian 0.04. Basically, it was what we'd nowadays term "base +
> bootfloppies" - an minimalistic base system on which to build the
> distribution. Even then, mailing lists were central to development, and
> development was a group effort.
> 
> On Tue, May 05, 1998 at 08:41:03AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> > My memory doesn't extend back that far, nor have I found any documentation
> > on that period.
> 
> I don't think there is much documentation of that period; the Debian mailing
> list was actually a "Debian channel" on the Linux Activists server run by
> arl. It wasn't officially archived.
> 
> > I presume you're talking about Ian Murdock's original plans, in some
> > sense.  Can you elaborate a bit on what those original plans were, and why
> > they changed to the present (GNU style) form?
> 
> The original plans are laid down in the Debian Manifesto (doc-debian:
> /usr/doc/debian/debian-manifesto).
> 
> Ray
> -- 
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> 
> 
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Dwarf
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Re: The early days of Debian (was Re: ideas underlying policy)

[Raul Miller]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I remember Debian 0.04. Basically, it was what we'd nowadays term "base +
> bootfloppies" - an minimalistic base system on which to build the
> distribution. Even then, mailing lists were central to development, and
> development was a group effort.

That was my impression, which is why I wrote it the way I did.  I'd like
something a bit more definitive than this, so I can avoid the use of
hedge-words.

[I'll probably make some changes after reading the manifesto.  Thanks
for the URL.]

Thanks,

-- 
Raul


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Re: ideas underlying policy

[Raul Miller]

Buddha Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Reading your draft, I see discussion of the importance of the goals,
> but not the importance of the standards -- or at least, not in as many
> words.

Fair enough.

Do you think the small change you recommended satisfy this need?  Or are
you asking for some exposition on this subject?

You had suggested:
> I would state "a set of standards that...".  Or even better, "a set of 
> goals and standards that...".

-- 
Raul


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Re: ideas underlying policy

[Buddha Buck]

> >>This is a draft.<<
> 
> I've written a document which touches on what I feel are important
> meta-policy issues.  It's a little bit of history, a little bit of
> speculation, and a bit of an essay on how I think of debian.
> 
> I'm sure other people have different ideas.  I hope none of what
> I've written makes anyone angry or annoyed.
> 
> If you feel you could write this better, you're probably right.
> Please do so.
> 
> If you think I've misstated some point, please respond to this
> message with a reasonably lucid explanation.
> 

While I think it is good as far as it goes, I think it is missing 
something crutial.

There is in my opinion a difference between goals (such as "Debian 
should be a complete distribution") and a standard to implement that 
goal (such as "No package in main can depend upon a package outside of 
main", or "Packages MUST NOT depend on packages with a lower priority 
(base, standard, optional, extra) than themselves").

Reading your draft, I see discussion of the importance of the goals, 
but not the importance of the standards -- or at least, not in as many 
words.

You mention "guidelines" instead of "standards".  To me, there  is a 
major connotative difference between those two words.  To me, standards 
are not to be broken.  They are, in a way, a promise between 
developers, and developers and the user, that the goals will be met.  
"Guidelines" seem much less enforced.  "Advisary" rather than 
"promisary".  In addition, "standards" are the traditional way for 
disparate groups to work together -- I know that the standard 2x4 I buy 
at any American lumberyard will be the same size (1.5"x.75"), etc.

> -- 
> Raul
> 
> 
> What is Debian's Policy, and Why Should I Care?
> 
> Long before Debian was formed, there were a variety of Linux
> distributions. The people putting together those distributions did a
> pretty good job, but they were all put together by an individual or a
> small group, which was frustrating for people who wanted to improve the
> distribution.
> 
> Debian was formed to take advantage of the strengths of the Linux
> community, and put together an "open" distribution. Where, at least in
> principal, anyone could chip in and make things better.
> 
> So, we came up with an idea of a distribution that was designed to allow
> people to contribute: one where you could upgrade the system smoothly,
> without having to reinstall everything, one where many people would work
> together to make the distribution.
> 
> For this to work, we need to focus on freely distributable software
> (thus the Debian Free Software Guidelines). More than that, we've
> formulated policy: a set of guidelines that lets packages put together
> by people who have never even met work smoothly in a variety of
> environments and configurations.

I would state "a set of standards that...".  Or even better, "a set of 
goals and standards that...".
 
> This policy reflects a lot of work by the authors of the document, and
> others. The policy is a rough outline of how Debian is supposed to work,
> as a system.
> 
> Ideally, we would like people to be able to use their experiences on
> other (similar) systems, without having to do a lot of study. Ideally,
> we would like packages from several years ago work smoothly in a system
> together with packages we're writing now, and packages which will be
> written several years from now.
> 
> In practice, it's not always so simple. Where we have to make
> compromises, we tend to favor widely adopted standards, and we try to
> err on the side of system stability. Keeping an eye on the future, we
> probably ought to err on the side of simplicity.
> 
> Debian's Policy Manual is a work in progress, describing where we think
> we are, and where we think we want to be. It's important to read through
> the manual, if you're putting together a software package. Even if
> you're not putting together a package, understanding the manual will
> clear up a lot of little questions you might have about how things are
> laid out, and why.
> 
> Debian's distribution itself is a work in progress. At the time of this
> writing, we have a lot to do before system administration really makes
> sense. Ideally, a person should only have to enter relevant information
> once (and when the configuration needs to be changed). Ideally, a person
> shouldn't have to study a lot of documentation for a long time before
> they go about changing something which they have a basic understanding
> of.
> 
> In practice, we sometimes ask the same questions multiple times (when
> upgrading packages, or when putting the same configuration on many
> systems), and we sometimes don't meet our goal of having packages "just
> work" without requiring any configuration.
> 
> Ideally, there should be a simple way to tell someone how to find
> documentation on an issue they're interested in. In practice, we're
> still working on that... One advantage of following standards is that we
>

The early days of Debian (was Re: ideas underlying policy)

[jdassen]

On Tue, May 05, 1998 at 12:10:54AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>   Actually, when Debian was formed it had only one developer,
>  and no one could contribute packages, since that would have diluted
>  the distributions tight integration. This bazaar thing has evolved. 

I remember Debian 0.04. Basically, it was what we'd nowadays term "base +
bootfloppies" - an minimalistic base system on which to build the
distribution. Even then, mailing lists were central to development, and
development was a group effort.

On Tue, May 05, 1998 at 08:41:03AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> My memory doesn't extend back that far, nor have I found any documentation
> on that period.

I don't think there is much documentation of that period; the Debian mailing
list was actually a "Debian channel" on the Linux Activists server run by
arl. It wasn't officially archived.

> I presume you're talking about Ian Murdock's original plans, in some
> sense.  Can you elaborate a bit on what those original plans were, and why
> they changed to the present (GNU style) form?

The original plans are laid down in the Debian Manifesto (doc-debian:
/usr/doc/debian/debian-manifesto).

Ray
-- 
Tevens ben ik van mening dat Nederland overdekt dient te worden.


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Re: ideas underlying policy

[Raul Miller]

Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   Actually, when Debian was formed it had only one developer,
>  and no one could contribute packages, since that would have diluted
>  the distributions tight integration. This bazaar thing has evolved. 

My memory doesn't extend back that far, nor have I found any documentation
on that period.  I presume you're talking about Ian Murdock's original
plans, in some sense.  Can you elaborate a bit on what those original
plans were, and why they changed to the present (GNU style) form?
 
>   "If you find yourself having to do something which seems to
>   conflict with policy -- where it seems like you should do
>   things differently, 

>  Please take a moment and reflect on the issue. The policy document
>  has not been thrown together trivially, it has been the concerted
>  effort of a number of people, who may well have spent weeks
>  discussion each little point. If after careful review you still think
>  that Policy happens to be flawed in some way, then please 

Er... is this an alternate phrasing, a comment directed at me, or some
combination?

>   include a comment to that effect in your package's change log,
>   and please file a bug report against policy. 

>   I like the rationale. I would add: Policy is the distilled
>  wisdome and and experience of a number of people who have worked
>  together to create the policy documents, and is meant to be something
>  that one may depend on to have been thought through, for the most
>  part (since the people who created this are only human, policy is not
>  flawless).

Do you mean, add this sentence at this point in the document, or
anywhere in the document? (there's another paragraph where it would flow
smoother).

>   There are issues for which there are several equally valid
>  technocal solutions, but a coherent distribution has to make a
>  decision between competeing solutions -- conventions (like the
>  location of the http server document root) that help different
>  packages in the distribution cooperate and depend on each other. The
>  policy documents are also a compendia of such conventions critical
>  for a cohesive OS.

Again, I'm not quite sure why you're saying this -- is this language
you'd like to see in the document?  Or is this a concept you'd
like to see in the document?  Or is this something you'd like
to see in some specific paragraph?

Please, I can't try to intuit too much here.  I need to be able to
distinguish between misunderstandings, stream of conciousness, 
deep thoughts, and random comments.

Thanks,

-- 
Raul


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Re: ideas underlying policy

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

Actually, when Debian was formed it had only one developer,
 and no one could contribute packages, since that would have diluted
 the distributions tight integration. This bazaar thing has evolved. 

"If you find yourself having to do something which seems to
conflict with policy -- where it seems like you should do
things differently, 
 Please take a moment and reflect on the issue. The policy document
 has not been thrown together trivially, it has been the concerted
 effort of a number of people, who may well have spent weeks
 discussion each little point. If after careful review you still think
 that Policy happens to be flawed in some way, then please 
include a comment to that effect in your package's change log,
and please file a bug report against policy. 

I like the rationale. I would add: Policy is the distilled
 wisdome and and experience of a number of people who have worked
 together to create the policy documents, and is meant to be something
 that one may depend on to have been thought through, for the most
 part (since the people who created this are only human, policy is not
 flawless).

There are issues for which there are several equally valid
 technocal solutions, but a coherent distribution has to make a
 decision between competeing solutions -- conventions (like the
 location of the http server document root) that help different
 packages in the distribution cooperate and depend on each other. The
 policy documents are also a compendia of such conventions critical
 for a cohesive OS.


manoj
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Manoj Srivastava  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
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