Re: removing debian-consultants list
On Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:00, cameron@clueinc.net wrote:
> 1: Re: unstable packages on stable systems
>
> Neither of those is a satisfactory solution in that they're a little
> risky and complicate maintenance for me, which costs my clients money,
> which they'd rather spend on having me write web application code.
>
> Are there enough Debian consultants out there for us to get organized
> about this issue? Is there an appropriate way to use consulting revenue
> as a motivator for package maintainers?
It seems that Brian May has done more woody back-ports than anyone else.
deb http://www.microcomaustralia.com.au/debian/ stable selinux main
The above apt line gets Brian's packages (you can skip the "selinux" part if
you don't want the SE patched versions of login etc). Brian's site can
sustain a reasonable amount of use (although it's not particularly fast), if
that becomes an issue there is an option of a European mirror for better
bandwidth (Brian - is Tom mirroring the rest of your archive or just the SE
stuff?).
I think it would be good if we organized a consistant site for such back-ports
with designated people for different packages. Brian, how difficult would it
be to set this up?
Also one thing that can be considered is paying people to back-port the
packages. If you have a need for Postgresql to be back-ported and to have it
kept up to date with bug fixes etc then it might be easiest to just pay
someone like Brian $100 per month to do the work and email you whenever
there's a new package ready to be installed. $100 per month is not much
money if your business depends on Postgres, but over the year it's enough pay
to make it worth-while for someone to fo the work properly.
Another thing that springs to mind is backups. It seems that all Linux backup
software is grossly inadequate, apart from the commercial software which is
ridiculously expensive, slightly inadequate, and has security issues. If
someone has the funding then we could develop some better backup software for
Linux to address some of these issues. Brian has suggested extending DAR for
network functionality.
> 2: Re: Pseudopackages for rapid deployment of common configurations.
How is FAI coming along? Last I checked it needed a lot of work. Getting FAI
more usable will probably do more good for rapid deployment than
pseudo-packages.
> refer each other to the handfull of ISPs that see things our way? Can
> we pool resources and set up our own managed hosting environment?
Maybe hosting a machine at a well connected site such as AMSIX and sharing it
via UML would be a good option.
> 4: Re: non-consulting revenue streams
> Steady and non-personal-services revenue streams can be important to
> small businesses, and there are a couple of ways in which solutions to
> the above four issues could result in them. Managed hosting
> environments for developers to deploy their clients on could provide
> steady revenue for administrators. A consulting specific, subscription
> based package archive could distribute income to contributing developers.
Sounds interesting. Although there's the issue of how to make money from
distribution of GPL software...
> Obviously, some of this is drifting into subjects that tend to start
> flame-wars, but maybe a detailed discussion about the role of money in
> open source is an appropriate use of this list too, provided it stays
> reasonably polite.
As everyone here wants to make money I don't think there will be much
disagreement. ;)
> 5: Re: requests for proposal
> I'm sure we'd all like to see more requests for proposals. If that's
> not appropriate for this list, there should be a debian-rfp list and/or
> website as well, and the people on debian-consultants (including me)
> might want to think about funding a little advertising for it.
Send them here. It's not as if we're being inundated with traffic on this
list. :-#
--
http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/ My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages
http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
Reply to: