On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 09:04, Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote: > The GPL says: > > > 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY > > FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. > > I think that's the main problem here. Debian is not a professional > entity... Agreed. However, I'm not looking for *legal* liability. I'm looking for something I personally can vouch for. I use Debian at home, here on my laptop, and at work. I personally recommend it to friends that wish to learn about Linux in general, and converts from other distributions. I really do believe in the success of Debian, especially as a non-corporate entity. But really, that's neither here nor there. I'm just looking, as a programmer myself, to provide other programmers, system administrators, and "computer people" with help on a system designed to build "good things". So not to rant too long, but I'm not looking for legal or other recourse. I want to talk to people and be able to decide what to do. I want to deal with people, and know what they're doing. I'm not looking to blame anyone :) > .. most people working on Debian do it on their own time, for fun or > sometimes because there's a company that needs some specific stuff and > sponsors people to do it. > > So allthough what you are asking for is valuable and a good idea, the best > you can do is either: > > * hope > * kindly ask for it and hope > * pay someone to take care about your concerns > * dive yourself into the matter and find out for yourself > * get a commercialy supported version of Debian that can guarantee you > what you are asking for Again, agreed. And I have been trying to devise a solution to some of my problems. Currently, I do 1 & 2, I'm trying to do 4 more, and I'm completely unaware of 5. As to 3, I've been trying to work out an escrow system to motivate people to get package done more quickly. Overall, this still doesn't address the major problem, which is communication inside of Debian proper. I'm much more willing to do all of the steps above if I know the people inside are doing good work, and I can decide to apply myself to help them. One of the reasons I'm "with" Debian is that I believe the people involved generally want to create a quality solution that meets it's users needs. To make this better, I'm trying to figure out better communication methods so people don't duplicate effort, become frustrated, etc. Really, these problems are endemic in groups, be they distributed, corporate, or otherwise. I don't expect perfection, or anything close, but I'd still like to try and get there. > If you follow the list you'll see that many people are happy with the > currently provided KDE3 packages [1] and you can made an estimate from > there. I've noticed a great deal of happines from individual users, mainly people who are willing to invest the time and are willing to risk breaking their system. I have noticed some discontent amongst the people who just want to follow the main tree and get the things they're looking for. I am one of these people. Maybe to my detriment, I don't want to have to put a lot of effort into getting new packages and maintaining them. This is the major selling point of Debian for me. I really like the way, for the most part, Debian "just works". When it doesn't, in general, I can figure out what I need to to make it work. What I'm in search of here is extra communication so that I can help out with the project, not just the end result. I'm willing to help with money, feed, CPU power, but I can't find a situation where my sharing these things will actually make a difference. This seems to be communication again. I *know* these resources can be applied somewhere, but finding those places are difficult. If I could pay calc 20 bucks, and find 50 other people to do so to get this package out, I would. I might even be able to get my company to cough up some money, but I don't know where to start, or if this is even the appropriate solution. (I know KDE's 3.x release is a GCC issue, just illustrating the point). > And if you want to deploy KDE3 throughout your company, then your best bet > is to make one or more test-installations or -upgrades use the upgraded > system for a while, and after you've made sure things work out for you as > they should, make the next step and upgrade the rest - just like you > probably would with Windows or whatever, where you won't get any guarantee > either, and only can be fairly sure that things should more or less work. Which we've done already. What we're worried about is the upgrade path. What does the future hold for these packages? I'm not looking for predicition or promises, I'm looking for intent. (I would take Chris Cheney's word over MS's *any day*.) Will I be able to simply change the sources.list entry and be able to use the main distro source, with no other modifications? Is this the goal? What *are* the goals for this part of the project? Which packages will be part of the final release? I don't want to waste a lot of time with needless documentation, but it's good to know who these packages are being created for (do I need to start packaging a set of package designed for corporate users?), how much time the person plans to work on it, what their progress is, etc etc. This allows me to make decisions to help, to avoid, or any number of things. I want the information to make these choices. All of this is alot to ask of volunteers, and I understand that. If I need to build tools to help them provide this information, I'll work on that. However, for me (and I think others) to buy into and use software, they want this kind of information. People who want their products to be used could do a lot to further acceptance and feedback and help with this sort of information. Anyway, that's way more than my two cents. I'll rant off list from now on, heh ;) Enjoy, Matt
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