Re: CD purchases

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Frans Pop wrote:

On Tuesday 11 March 2008, Alissa Dirubbo wrote:
  

My name is Alissa DiRubbo, and I am the librarian at Bryant & Stratton
College, Liverpool, NY. We have a faculty member that is interested in
purchasing the Debain GNU/Linux installation CD's (2007),for our
collection. Before we do this, I need to ask some questions.



Hello,

Thank you for your interest in Debian.

The Debian project itself does not sell CDs. However, there are various 
independent vendors who do sell Debian CDs.


You can find a list of vendors in the USA on this web page:
http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/#us

Please see their web sites for details on pricing and shipping costs.

Kind regards,
Frans Pop
  

The CDs are also available as a free download from the Debian website.

Benjamin


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Re: Improving the DAM-queue?

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Bastian Venthur wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Taking the data available on nm.debian.org, I've noticed that in the
> last six months only 28 applicants became Debian Developers. This means
> roughly every 6.4 days an applicant gets processed by a DAM.
>
> Further I've noticed that by this time 25 of the 28 applicants where
> processed by only one DAM-Member (joerg).
>   
This is not quite true. All applicants are processed at least in some
degree by James as well, as he is the only person with the power to
create accounts. While he may not spend as much time reading the report
for applicants Joerg proccesses (which is just an assumption, I have no
knowledge of how the division of labor is set up), he still is
reponsible for creating the account.

For example, I was approved by Joerg 2 months ago but am still waiting
for account creation.[0]

Benjamin

[0] https://nm.debian.org/nmstatus.php?email=astronut%40dlgeek.net



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Re: DPL caretaking

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Joey Hess wrote:
> Anthony Towns wrote:
>   
>> Sorry this took longer than I'd hoped. Anyway here's the caretaking stuff
>> so we can get on with the DPL recall vote stuff without having to worry
>> about things being left in the lurch. I'll be trying to avoid exercising
>> any DPL powers from now until the votes are dealt with, assuming nothing
>> insane pops up in the meantime.
>> 
>
> So 5 or Q or whatever it is people can block the DPL from doing anything
> for 1 or 2 months just by proposing a recall? Isn't that broken?
>
>   
From the way I read it, this was a choice AJ made out of respect for the
opinion of those developers, not something he was constitutionally
required to do.

HTH,
Benjamin



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Re: Branding for Debian derivatives -- "Debian Distilled"

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit Anthony Towns 
>
>   
>> Okay, so this is just my idea. Add grains of salt to taste, etc.
>>
>> The idea is to take the Debian "official use" logo [0] which we've
>> never really made much use of, and declare it the logo for derivatives
>> instead. Add the word "distilled" [1] underneath, and you could describe
>> a derivative something like this:
>> 
>
> I'm not much for co-opting the bottle logo like this. True, it is
> seldom used, but some people do know what it is currently supposed to
> mean, and it will create confusion to start using it for something
> completely opposite.
>
> How about someting like
> 
> which shows Debian rolling out the red carpet for derivates? :-)
>
>   
Henning was nice enough to send me his source, and I played around with
it to get this:
http://dlgeek.net/debianderived.png

I really wish I had a better way to do the carpet's flair, but I
couldn't think of one. Any graphics people are welcome to improve on this.

Benjamin



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Re: Extremadura Regional Government of Spain will switch to Debian GNU/Linux and ODF on all the computers

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Michael Banck wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 29, 2006 at 01:30:21PM +0200, Jesus Climent wrote:
>   
>> According to Millan, 
>> 
>
> You seem to not have introduced Mr. Millan until this point, maybe write
> his full name and position/involvement to this here.  Sorry if I just
> missed it.
>
> Also, if you want this to be a full press release, maybe also submit it
> to debian-publicity for language review and further input, if you
> haven't already.
>
>
> cheers,
>
> Michael
>
>
>   
He said at the begining "The councillor for Infrastructures and
Technological Development, Luis Mill�n de V�zquez de Miguel, met the
press this Friday..."



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Re: package ownership in Debian

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Clint Adams wrote:
>   
>>> Yes, and we could start by really enforcing co-maintainership.  Make it 100%
>>> mandatory for all essential, required and base packages at first.
>>>   
>> Are there packages which are particularly well co-maintained right now?
>> 
>
> Particularly well co-maintained?  I don't know.  Well co-maintained?  Yes.
> cyrus-imapd comes to mind, but that's because I follow that one very
> closely.
>
>   
Gee, thanks boss.

As a member of this team, I want to add a few benefits of
team-maintenance that I've observed:
(Unordered)

- To many eyes, all bugs are trivial. Maybe not all bugs, but I know
that the ability to have someone looking over your shoulder makes
catching mistakes a lot easier, especially typos.

- They provide good learning environments. I knew nothing about cyrus
when I joined the team, and was still unsure about my (minimal) work in
debian. I learned a lot about maintaining a complex package as well as
various other bits of knowledge (one of the other team members taught me
to use SVN as I had never touched a source code management system before).

- It lowers the burden on everyone's shoulders. I can think of many
times where I've seen emails like "This patch from upstream needs to go
in, but I have no time, can someone else do it?" Also stuff in IRC/AIM
like: "I"m heading out the door right now, I've done x and y of task
foo, can you finish up with z".

- It allows for more specialization. While we all work on all of the
package, I tend to do more bug triage and work with the debian
packaging, while others will do more work on the upstream source code.
This lets people work to their talents.

There are others, but the rest that come to mind at the moment are
oft-repeated. I'm sure I missed some.

HTH,
Benjamin



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Re: "Debian Powered" Logo

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Julien BLACHE wrote:
> Eduard Bloch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>   
>>> 
>>>   
>> Something, yes. Maybe you could try to use the text only three times.
>> 
>
> OK, here it is with the text repeated only 3 times, in a closed circle
> around the swirl:
> 
>
> The text repeated 3 time in an open circle around the swirl (same font
> size than -1.png):
> 
>
> They still need some work, consider them as a base for the discussion
> :)
>
> JB.
>
>   
It seems to me that that particular text ("Debian Powered") makes more
sense as a button for a service on a box running debian. For a Debian
Derived Distribution, I think it would make more sense to
s/powered/derived/.


Just my $0.02
Benjamin



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Re: Call for a new DPL mediation ... This will be the only thread i will reply to in the next time about this issue.

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Chris Waters wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 05:55:42PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 05:09:10PM -0700, Chris Waters wrote:
>> 
>>> It doesn't matter!  The DPL has no authority in the matter!
>>>   
>
>   
>> He seems to think he does.  At least, he has authority to stop abuse
>> of the mailing lists if he thinks it's happening.
>> 
>
> I meant specifically the matter of SVN access.  Obviously the DPL has
> authority over the Debian mailing lists.
>
>   
>> Do you know for a fact that a majority of the team members
>> are likely to quit, or have threatened to quit, if AJ (or a GR) restores
>> Sven's commit access?
>> 
>
> AJ (or a GR) cannot restore Sven's commit access.
>
> I know nothing about the positions of the d-i team or Sven or AJ.  I'm
> simply saying that if AJ or the project tried to tell *me* who could
> have access to a repository under *my* control, I would tell them, in
> very specific terms, where to shove it and how fast to spin.  :)
>
>   
AIUI (please, correct me if I am wrong) the D-I repository is hosted on
svn.d.o, a machine belonging to the debian project. I don't see why the
DPL would have authority over the mailing lists (hosted on a debian
machine and maintained by the list admins) but not the svn repo (hosted
on a debian machine, maintained by the svn admins (alioth team?) and
access for that particular repo controlled by the project admins).

Not to say that I disagree that the team should be able to choose their
own members. I think the best result would be for the entire D-I team to
vote on it, and base the decision on that, but I don't think that would
be accepted by all parties in the argument.

Benjamin



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Re: Issues regarding powerpc and Sven

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

MJ Ray wrote:
> Roger Leigh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>   
>> Quite.  I saw AJ's words as being complementary, not derogatory.
>> 
>
> Well, normal people think it's derogatory to write that
> normal people do one thing, but you did something else(!)
>   
Another term for "normal" might be "average", at least in some contexts.
I don't know about you, but I don't particularly feel that it's
derogatory to congratulate someone on being above average. I know that
I'm proud of my irregularities. Some people also call these talents.
> If AJ meant it as purely a compliment, that's welcome (but
> I wait to see) but it seems a strangely-worded one.
>   
I didn't think so.
>   
>> I thought AJ's entire mail was impartial, diplomatic, non-inflammatory
>> 
>
> Partiality and diplomacy, I'm not sure and I'm not sure
> whether that matters, but it inflamed things.
>   
Only due to other's interpretations. I also found it to be very
diplomatic and non-inflammatory. For the record, I have no side in this
debate, though I do have an ulterior motive: producing the best free
operating system possible.
>   
>> and showing the best path to achieve reconciliation and re-establish
>> trust on both sides.  Exactly what one would expect of a good DPL.
>> 
>
> Is it the best path?  Is it even viable?  Time may tell.
>
>   

What other path is there? How can a team work together if they can't
trust each other. If one looks to history, we see the cold war. The
peace was maintained through the fact that either side could destroy the
other. Do we want MAD reinstated in Debian? I don't think so. The only
thing holding Debian together is trust. We trust that people will not
act to hurt debian, we trust that even though they may not agree,
they'll follow the results of GRs, and act in accordance with the
constitution. We trust that they will act in good faith in their work
with debian and with others. When that trust is gone, collaboration
becomes impossible.

Just my $0.02

Benjamin



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Re: irc.debian.org

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Marco d'Itri wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>   
 I agree with Steve. While I agree that freenode has many flaws (the
 biggest being NOIDPRIVMSG), I find that while I am in Debian channels on
 
>>> Exactly, why is an optional feature such a big flaw?
>>>   
>> Because it's the default and practically no one changes it. This is a
>> 
> Maybe because actually it's not such a big deal? :-)
>
>   
>> big problem, because on a network that offers so many support channels,
>> you have a lot of users who are on only to get a question answered (Foo
>> isn't working, what am I doing wrong?). These users have no desire, nor
>> real reason to register a nick. Also, there are lots of times I have
>> 
> They do not need to. If you want to receive their privated messages then
> *you* can disable NOIDPRIVMSG and they will not even know about it.
>
>   
Yet it's the default, and many don't even realize they can change this
setting. Also, freenode strongly recommends that channels only allow
comments from registered users.
>> been disconnected, and not noticed I wasn't ID'd. I have sent people
>> messages, and only hours later realized that they weren't received
>> because I wasn't re-ID'd.
>> 
> Can I suggest you use one of the autoidentification scripts?
>
>   
Yes, I keep meaning to, but that's the point: it forces more work onto
the user.
>> You may also want to ask some of the DD's who refuse to use freenode
>> anymore. Some of them have very detailed gripes that might be able to be
>> addressed.
>> 
> Yes, some of them are also former staff members or server sponsors...
>
>   
I'm talking about well after the OFTC formation. If there are that many
people dissatisfied with freenode, it seems likely that there are
underlying problems that cause this. One thing I've noticed is certain
unprofessional behavior among some of the staff. For instance, the april
fools joke played on OFTC was very unprofessional IMHO.

Please realize, I'm not anti-freenode, I just think that there are
improvements that can be made.




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Re: irc.debian.org

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Marco d'Itri wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>   
>> I agree with Steve. While I agree that freenode has many flaws (the
>> biggest being NOIDPRIVMSG), I find that while I am in Debian channels on
>> 
> Exactly, why is an optional feature such a big flaw?
>   
Because it's the default and practically no one changes it. This is a
big problem, because on a network that offers so many support channels,
you have a lot of users who are on only to get a question answered (Foo
isn't working, what am I doing wrong?). These users have no desire, nor
real reason to register a nick. Also, there are lots of times I have
been disconnected, and not noticed I wasn't ID'd. I have sent people
messages, and only hours later realized that they weren't received
because I wasn't re-ID'd.
> I think it would also be useful to know about those other issues you are
> thinking about
I think the wallops are much more frequent than need be, which is very
distracting. I have also seen that sometimes (not usually), the staff
could be more friendly and less holier-than-though. However, this is not
frequent, the rudeness just sticks out in my mind. Most of the time,
I've found the staff to be very friendly and helpful.

You may also want to ask some of the DD's who refuse to use freenode
anymore. Some of them have very detailed gripes that might be able to be
addressed. Off the top of my head, I know that dillinger made an
extensive blog entry about it when he left that was syndicated on planet.

HTH,
Benjamin



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Re: irc.debian.org

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> [Steve McIntyre]
>   
>> I can see that more and more of my own Debian IRC discussions are on
>> oftc, to the extent that I'm (currently) not on any freenode
>> channels at all.
>> 
>
> For me it is the other way around.  I am currently on one channel on
> OFTC, while I am on 7 channels on Freenode, 4 of them related to
> Debian.
>
>
>   
I agree with Steve. While I agree that freenode has many flaws (the
biggest being NOIDPRIVMSG), I find that while I am in Debian channels on
both networks, many more open source projects are on freenode, and that
makes things much more convenient. Even if all Debian development moved
to OFTC, I'd still stay on freenode for fluxbox, all of the various kde
components I use, postfix, etc, etc etc. I think it might be better for
us to try to use our influence as a huge source of users to try to
better freenode than to just move.





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Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 12:35:54AM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
>   
>> On Thursday 06 April 2006 23:55, Erinn Clark wrote:
>> 
>>> Do you mean this question? (Actually about ld, but it's the closest one
>>> I found that seemed appropriately irrelevant.)
>>>
>>> I3. What is the -Bsymbolic ld flag, exactly what does it do, and
>>> how that differs from library symbol versioning? What problems do
>>> -Bsymbolic linking solve? Why is libc6 not compiled with -Bsymbolic?
>>>   
>> I would guess this is a question from the T&S part of the process, the 
>> part that is supposed to be tailored to the applicant. At least, I'm very 
>> happy to say, I have never seen this question during my NM process 
>> (which, as you probably know, was the translator/documentation writer 
>> track).
>> 
>
> I have seen the question, and answered it. If you were to ask it again
> to me, I wouldn't know the answer. I'd probably either do the same
> research again, or look in my NM archives -- I think the latter is
> probably fastest.
>
> I've never maintained a C library, though I did agree to help a little
> bit on some C++ library recently. I don't expect I'll go looking up what
> -Bsymbolic means even now.
>
> Is this question useless? I don't know. Apparantly, it didn't help me in
> any way. And this is the type of question that can get obsolete too.
> What is much more useful to test, but can't *that* easily be done with a
> fixed questionaire, is ensuring people can apply common sense, and can
> research things they need. From a DD, I expect that given a challenge, a
> technical packaging issue previously totally unkown, one can some way or
> the other resolve it. That is what you're doing as DD anyway, you get
> the weirdest issues in bugs, as user questions, etc, and you need to
> find a way to resolve that. Policy doesn't mention your special case, so
> you're on your own.
>
> I'd very much like for more emphasis being placed on such problem
> resolution capabilities, next to also interaction/communication
> capabilities (with bugreporters, fellow DDs, upstreams, etc etc).
>
> --Jeroen
>
>   
I'm in the NM process. I'm done with part 1 of T&S and still have to do
part 2, which includes that question. I don't know the answer to it. To
find the answer, I'll have to do research. I'll probably read a lot
about libraries while finding the answer, since it's a topic I don't
know much about. I don't think the question is designed so much as to
test whether I know about library compile options as my ability to do
research and to process, understand and utilize the information I find.
I think that Debian and the NM process don't care about how well you
know compile time options from memory, but that you have the skill to
learn new skills and pieces of information as you need them. That's a
general skill, and can only be tested by more specific questions.

Just my $0.02,
Benjamin Seidenberg

PS: If anyone wants to share the answer, reply by private mail. ;-)





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Re: PR work

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote:


Martin Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
 


Don't forget that we have debian-news *and* debian-announce, while

only high-priority announcements are sent to debian-announce.
   



Why do we have that distinction? Both lists are very low-traffic, with
approximately one mail per week.
 

I think you're confusing debian-announce with debian-devel-announce. By 
my count, debian-announce has had three (3) messages since the release 
of sarge. (Sarge released, security changes and sarge updated)


HTH,
Benjamin


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Re: Private copies of list replies

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Manoj Srivastava wrote:


   I guess it is time to move to a more capable MUA, no?

   manoj
 

How many Joe/Jane users do you think can handle the complexity and 
different paradigm required by mutt? These mailers are easy to use, and 
are well integrated into the desktop environment. Most importantly, they 
offer GUI/Point-and-Click interfaces so that they are easy to use.


(I want to set up mutt eventually, but I don't have the time to relearn 
mail at the mmomment. Perhaps this summer).



David Weinehall wrote:



There are plugins for Thunderbird that solves that (mnehy, for
instance); you can also do a little prefs hackery:

Again, how many Joe users are going to install extensions or mess around 
with their prefs.js to set up arbitrary headers ("headers? what are 
those")? This sort of thing has to work out of the box for everyone.


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Re: Private copies of list replies (Was: Re: buildd and experimental)

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Glenn Maynard wrote:


On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 07:56:42PM +, MJ Ray wrote:
 


I continue to think that you have not read the DRUMS discussions.
No insult is meant, but you show no signs of having done so.
   



I read the messages you linked.  They complained that it's not a standard
and asserted, without explanation, that it's better to do it in the body
of the message.  (Obviously, I didn't read the entire threads; like you,
I have limited time--and, for the present, decreasing motivation--to
devote to this topic.)

 


It's not much extra time messing with headers by pressing
a different reply key, compared with you expecting users of
most mail clients to do hard/impossible header manipulations.
   



I don't find setting headers hard.
 

You don't use Thunderbird, Evolution, Kmail, most of the GUI based 
FOSS mail clients.


 


Apply your expectations to yourself. Don't push the work to handle
your mail client's exceptional support for a non-standard buggy
header onto everyone who requests a CC. It's unacceptable.
   



It's the other user that wants to be treated special, so it's their
job to make that happen.

 

Except most mail clients ignore M-F-T anyway, so setting the header 
doesn't help in a lot of cases.



I frequently post to lists that I am not subscribed to and don't
want a CC for. I either get the messages through a remailer or
another access method (NNTP, web archives later, and so on).
Your proposal does the wrong thing for anyone reading via
linux.* or gmane and probably many others, irrespective of the
usual MFT brokenness.
   



If you're not subscribed and don't want copies anyway, set your own MFT
header saying so, which would prevent the list from guessing otherwise.
If the user has set MFT explicitly, the list should probably not mess
with it.

 


True.


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Re: Candidate questions: expulsions process

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

MJ Ray wrote:


Benjamin Seidenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Say (said, saying, says):
2. To express in words: Say what's on your mind.
3. a. To state as one's opinion or judgment; declare: I say let's eat out.
   b. To state as a determination of fact: It's hard to say who is 
right in this matter..


Since you expressed your opinion in words, I think the use of the word 
\"said\" is quite proper
   



I disagree. Also, I think it would be better to use a dictionary
that shows whether the verb is transitive or intransitive for
each meaning, and state to which dictionary you are referring.

 


Any voices you heard reading debian-vote to you today
were not mine. If you can't distinguish between me and the voices
you hear reading debian-vote to you, please ask your doctor.
 

As a neutral party to this debate, I nonetheless think that such a 
insult, even if said jokingly and meant to be funny detracts from the 
value of open and productive discourse. Let us debate grand and noble 
ideas, not get bogged down in petty details.
   



In case you hadn't noticed, Matthew Garrett insults me in almost
every reply for months now. Why don't you ever complain about it?
If you wanted to debate grand and noble ideas, why not complain
about introduction of the off-topic wife-beating old chestnut?
I feel both of those detract from productive discourse more than
riffing on the low linguistic register of a message.

 


[Replied to above questions in private mail, as requested]


If you want to debate grand ideas: What role should
socio-religious views play in the Debian project?
Would using differences in beliefs about death
as a motive to call for expulsion (as threatened in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00929.html
and explained in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/01/msg00968.html )
be good for Debian if it happens? If it's OK to expel some DDs
for holding minority beliefs and therefore improve the cultural
homogeneity of the project, what beliefs should it be done for?
On Deaths? Births? Sexuality? Churches? Prayer? Business ethics?

 

I don't think personal beliefs should ever be a qualification or 
criteria for anything. Everyone is entitled to private thoughts. 
Expression and implementation of these views is subject to reactions by 
others. However, any action against someone should be based on their 
ACTIONS not the views that caused them. For example, let us consider a 
hypothetical DD who was strongly anti-Semetic (best example I could come 
up with at 1 AM). While I wouldn't want to be his/her friend (being 
Jewish, I doubt he/she would want to be mine), their view is their own, 
and the project has no right to punish them for it. That way leads to 
thought police. However, if their belief caused them to respond to every 
post to the list by someone who was Jewish or had a Jewish sounding name 
with flames, insults, threats or other such conduct, they should face 
some kind of disciplinary action (possibly leading up to expulsion). 
However, the disciplinary action should be for their conduct, not the 
reasons behind it. At least that's my view, poorly phrased as it is due 
to the late hour.



Replies to final paragraph to -project, please, else direct.


Done.



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Re: Private copies of list replies

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Glenn Maynard wrote:



I'm also failing to see any reasons people would *not* set M-F-T if they
want CCs (or if they specifically don't; Debian lists aside, most other
lists have no such policy).  I'm not charged for email on a per-header
basis; there's no drawback to setting it.
 

Thunderbird, as well as many other MUAs doesn't allow you to set 
arbitrary headers, including M-F-T.


HTH,
Benjamin


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Re: Questions about Ubuntu

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Joey Hess wrote:


Benjamin Seidenberg wrote:
 

I think what we need to do is create some kind of meta-package that 
would pull in a full environment like what is installed by Ubuntu (which 
I know has been discussed in the past) and then offer an official 
"Debian Desktop" CD that would have D-I preconfigured to install this, 
and make an extremely visible option in D-I to install this meta-package 
on the full CDs. Thus, someone who wants a minimal system can still use 
the netinst CD or full CD set without the option, but a new user can use 
the single "Desktop CD" or the full CD set and check the option.
   



It seems that you have not installed the same Debian that I have? Since
it already does all of this.

 

I will admit that when I first installed debian, I was still using the 
woody floppy disk installer, and though I've used sarge's, it was only 
the netinst CD. I guess tasksel already does this, but someone still has 
to go through and check desktop environment, after the install. What I'm 
talking about is the very beggining of the install asking "Desktop" 
"Server" or "Custom" install, something very noticable, and easier to 
use. If this is an option in the full CD set installer, I appologize.


Benjamin


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Re: Questions about Ubuntu

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

David N. Welton wrote:


Andreas Schuldei wrote:
 


Debian needs to learn to re-integrate the
improvements from derived distributions and would get a long way just
doing that. On top of that there should not be a problem becoming
more innovative ourselfs - there are enough cool problems to
solve. Listening to our users would tell us which ones we should start
with.
   



The reason Debian can't compete with Ubuntu for the Desktop/new to Linux
users is that Ubuntu makes choices where Debian won't or can't.  They
give you a default system that works well because they picked certain
things instead of others, instead of giving you the huge amount of
choice Debian gives you right out of the box.  The clever thing is that
that choice is still there if you want it...

 


[Moved to -project]

I think that you have made an excellent point, and this explains why I 
still recommend Ubuntu to people new to linux over Debian. As much as I 
love Debian, Ubuntu is much more of an out-of-the-box solution. If we 
compare the default installs, Debian leaves us with a blank slate, 
possible to design anything on (which is good for me, but not 
$RANDOM_USER), where Ubuntu leaves $RANDOM_USER with a ready-to-go 
graphical desktop environment with the basic productivity and internet 
tools (s)he needs to make use of the system. As you said, this is 
because Ubuntu chose to make certain choices Debian doesn't want to, 
about what to install. However, there is a large class of users that 
Debian doesn't appeal to because we don't make these choices.


I think what we need to do is create some kind of meta-package that 
would pull in a full environment like what is installed by Ubuntu (which 
I know has been discussed in the past) and then offer an official 
"Debian Desktop" CD that would have D-I preconfigured to install this, 
and make an extremely visible option in D-I to install this meta-package 
on the full CDs. Thus, someone who wants a minimal system can still use 
the netinst CD or full CD set without the option, but a new user can use 
the single "Desktop CD" or the full CD set and check the option.


While I agree choice is good, there are a lot of users who aren't able 
or don't want to make all the choices a lot of us do. While I know that 
deciding what is in this desktop system, and  realize this mail is 
probably going to set off a KDE-Gnome flame war, I think we are losing a 
large amount of users because we don't offer as simple to install of a 
system as Ubuntu.


Benjamin


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Re: Debian on one dvd?

[Benjamin Seidenberg]

Siward de Groot wrote:


On Wednesday 14 December 2005 15:46, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:
 


Also the stock image does not include source code correct?  Then how do we
meet the conditions of the GPL?  I don't think the written offer option is
feasible for the publishers (though I'll ask to make sure.)
   



Well, Debian could offer to take care of that for them...
Then they only need to include a written offer that
 the source can be downloaded from debian.org .
If they're shipping Sarge, then the sources will be available for a long time.

have fun !

 Siward de Groot
 (home.wanadoo.nl/siward)


 


IIRC, the sources have to be distributed in the same medium (Optical).
It's easy to see why, someone could install off a DVD and not have
internet access (or sufficient bandwidth) to be able to download the
sources, and they are entitled to the sources too...thus optical
distribution is a necessity.

Cheers,
Benjamin



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