Re: Debian Consulting
On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:07:29 +1200, Alex King <alex@king.net.nz> said:
> I can see both sides of the argument. On one hand there has clearly
> been very little relavant traffic on this list to justify its
> existance. On the other hand, the removal of the list would be a
> very sad sign for Debian, what would it say about Debian and its
> position in the commercial world?
The truth, perhaps?
> However, I don't think the voting or getting upset with the debian
> bureaucrats is productive.
Nice. Calling people like Josip, who, apart from managing his
packages, is working hard on several aspects of project
infrastructure, a nit picky faceless bureaucrat is hardly conducive
to opening a dialogue.
> People shutting down inactive lists are just doing their job.
Making best use of donated project resources, yes.
> Removal of the list would be a very unfortunate sign, a sign that
> debian consulting is not a widespread thing, that debian consultants
> do not communicate well, that debian consulting is in fact quite
> marginal. I think this is actually the case.
Why should we be scared of the truth, then?
> I don't know how widespread this vision is. I remember one of the
> leadership candidates saying something like, I want debian to be the
> best choice for everone (or every need or something), so I think
> there certainly are those who think this way. I also hear those
> within debian who simply don't care how widespread the adoption of
> debian is, or its market share vs. red hat, as long as it stays an
> excellent technical distribution.
I am of that number.
> There are also some (very few I hope) who don't want joe average
> users using debian because they see it as detracting from debian in
> some way.
> I simply want to be able to make a living from Debian as well as
> play with it as a hobby, and I want more scope to be able to work
> with it, which I would have if it became the de-facto standard.
Umm. The best way to achieve that is to help. (quick grep in
/var/lib/dpkg/available). There are a number of things that would
improve the adoption of Debian (GYI based installer, etc). The
fastest way to get there is to stop playing, and roll up your sleeves
and actually help get there.
> To achieve this of course requires more than just for us to just go
> back and beaver away at our own little businesses, or corners of the
> debian movement. It will I believe require major vision and
> structural changes.
Structural changes?
> Debian is based on - a commitment to free software, technical
> excellence in the distribution, and a commitment to the community of
> developers. There is a sort of implied marketing to developers and
> tech types; the organisation is one made up of developers, so it
> appeals to developers. There is no doubt in my mind that debian is
> unsuitable for the average home or business desktop user at this
> time. Work needs to be done to make debian (or a sub- or co-
> distribution) usable for this purpose.
I mostly agree.
> The debian organisation has been outstandingly sucessful at what it
> does, orgainsing the developer community and producing an excellent
> technical distribution. Any moves to market debian better must not
> be done at the expense of the current organisation. But I believe a
> commercial organisation must be set up to market debian, and to
> ensure debian's suitability for wider commercial and end-user
> markets.
Xandros, Knoppix, Lindows, lycoris?
> I would simply have the current organisation as it is, and set up a
> separate parallel comercial company to market debian and feed back
> to the main organisation about the needs of commercial users.
Progeny?
Anyway, starting a company to make money of Debian is not
really what interests me, but perhaps you can find others to help get
things started. You would definitely need your own mailing list when
you get there ;-)
manoj
--
ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not
so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,
'twill serve.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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