On Wed, 28 Apr 2010, Kumar Appaiah wrote:
> In addition, if folks here have a request for a talk on a particular
> topic, which they would not be able to present themselves, it would
> still be nice to convey the suggestions to the list and/or Michael, so
> that others who might like the idea could take it up, and potentially
> talk about that subject.
Although not requested, I've decided to share the abstract I've just
submitted. I wanted to get your feedback (does it sound worth
"lecturing" or may be some kind of "discussion" would be more
appropriate).
Here what it was before reformatting:
#!/bin/bash
Debian: {enri,rea}ching the science community
In this talk we suggest to consider few aspects which could help
Debian to become the Ultimate OS of choice in the science community.
Debian's slogan "The Universal Operating System" has provoked
extensive discussions in the recent years. Most of the time we,
Debian enthusiasts, agree that Debian generally deserves this title.
We primarily agree because we invested our valuable time and efforts
to make it such. Unfortunately our sentiment to Debian is often not
shared by "outsiders". We keep working hard but nevertheless in the
eyes of many Debian, if known at all, remains a Linux for geeks.
Nevertheless, some smart people take advantage of the internal
knowledge we all share, that "Debian is the best". They refurnish it
for "humans" by providing some target audience with explicit hints
that this product was created "for them" and often veiling the fact
that the actual product is coming from a "geekland" (i.e. us). Often
such derivative works diverge from the suggested principle of "stay
close to Debian", thus in danger of loosing numerous advantages Debian
provides.
Recently, the Ultimate Debian Database projects made a significant
leap forward by providing assimilation of information about the status
of Debian packages in Debian proper and Ubuntu. Debian Pure Blends
(formerly known as Custom Debian Distribution) provided a machinery
for tailoring The Universal Debian to fit the desires of target
user-bases in Science, Medicine, Education, and other domains.
Inclusion of information about projects which either are already in
Debian, or on the way to it, or even outside of Debian, made Blends an
invaluable resource for any Debian user. Moreover they could be
considered as a basic FOSS portal where it becomes very easy to find
information about projects related to our day-to-day interests.
We argue, that unfortunately those efforts haven't brought Debian out
of the "geekland" in the eyes of "humans" user-base. It still
requires additional efforts to deliver the message that "Debian is for
you". Debian is already known in the "geekland" as the most stable
Linux distribution and scientific audience is already a primary target
of many Pure Blends, such as Debian Science and Debian Med. It seems
that visibility is what is missing for enlightening the research
communities with already existing advantages of FOSS and Debian in
particular.
Such visibility could be easily achieved by
* spreading the word about Debian via presenting at specialized
scientific (outside of FOSS movement) conferences, with known demand
on the software being already present in Debian
* better visibility of Blends within Debian itself, i.e. by guiding
newcomers of www.debian.org to the respective themes (or Blends) of
Debian which remain Debian
* visibility and integration (sharing ratings/popularity) of Debian
with specialized FOSS portals (e.g. nitrc.org, medfloss.org), where
Debian could be suggested as an Ultimate deployment platform
But scientific computing has its own maggots which need to be
addressed before Debian could become indeed the choice one OS in
science. In this talk we would like to reiterate on some issues and
possible/already suggested ways for resolution
* deployment (installation vs virtualization vs cloud-computing vs
chrooting)
* references (must not enforced but should be readily available)
* installation (finer scale selection of blends/tags within d-i)
* stability vs dynamics (backports per blend?)
Moreover Debian could easily attract more of software developers
working on scientific FOSS by providing adequate welcoming material
guiding them into the theme of "Scientific Developers Debian".
--
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