Re: custom vs. derivative
[Bdale in CC because this mail touches a 4 year old issue about
CDDs we discussed in Malaga. Feel free to read the lengthy thread
at debian-custom list about defining what we understand as
CDD and how we would like to find a better name for the beast.]
On Thu, 10 Apr 2008, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
Fundamentally, CDDs should be standing on the shoulders of Debian - not
hanging on its neck.
This is a really nice summary. :-)
I now understand that "Debian distribution" is not singular (each
official stable release is a distribution, and each daily release of
testing or unstable is a release), so here's a nitpicking corrected
proposal:
A "Custom Debian Distribution" is a subdistribution of a Debian
distribution. This means that all parts of it must be completely
contained inside a single Debian distribution.
See also ASCII art further down...
I would like to you to put such things on the Wiki to make it
converge to something useful there. Please work actively with
http://wiki.debian.org/CDDNamingProposals
because I'm afraid that good ideas will be lost in a lengthy
thread on the mailing list.
Because you widened that page from naming CDD to naming other things
too, lengthening the discussion and blurring the topic IMO.
Well, I learned that the whole thing can finally only explained to
users in comparison to other things. It became obvious in the past
that people refuse to read / understand a definition and that they
used the name for other things as well. If we start to give clear
definition of the other things we could point them to the definition
page and say: You are not talking about "tingy 1" but you are
talking about "thingy 2". If we fail to describe the whole bunch
of related things people will come up with "IMHO-definitions" because
they have no apropriate name of the stuff they want to describe. It
is fine for me, if you care only about "thingy 1". So please ignore
the rest of the page and continue with your approach for "thingy 1"
(or make a sub page for this and link to it - I'll take over the
others) if this sounds more clear to you.
So I agree with you that our main focus should be on "thingy 1" but
we will loose many friends if we call them "all the (indifferent)
rest". IMHO this builds the bridge between mathematical preciseness
and real life.
Feel free to use my input in that broader naming task, I just have no
interest in participating in that.
Well, my interest in a one-man-show wiki page tends to zero. If
nobody is interested in putting ideas to this place I will probably
remove my suggestions and leave the plain names there. But I'm
seriousely afraid that people will understand different things
that should be described with the names if the definition does
not come first.
I see CDDs as _refinements_ to Debian itself without _distorting_ it.
Well said. I'm continuosely afraid that your nice descriptions
will finally bitrot in a lenthy mailing list thread if they will
not be collected in a summary document.
* no blurring of what Debian defines as free
* no blurring of what Debian defines as stable (or testing)
* no blurring of what Debian defines as officially released together
The above is *only* examples. Not meant for inclusion in a definition.
Sure. That's no definition, but that should be moved to the docs
because it is a good way to explain the definition.
If, on the other hand, you feel that CDDs _should_ support any of the
above even if it does not currently, then I honestly don't care about
your input. Feel free to elaborate, I just won't participate down that
subthread.
Well, in the discussion at OSWC in Malaga 2004 with Bdale Garbee,
Colin Watson, Martin Michlmayer and others we exactly thought about
the idea to drop the concept of doing full releases and instead
releasing single CDD-like pieces of Debian. I admit that at the
point in time when Bdale brought this up I felt really strange about
this idea and I'm not yet convinced that this approach solves more
problems than it might open. But it would be kind of a revolution
leading to a new quality of distributing things. I'm not saying
that the idea is good but please think about this for perhaps three
days whether we are to narrow mindet in your strict approach.
Finally every real life installation of a Debian system is a
CDD adapted to the users needs and why not releasing Debian like
this?
So I admit that this needs a completely new thinking and I was
very carefully in the past to elaborate on this (because I'm
afraid about such a strong revolution as you and many others
probably are). But I would not really like to cut this rope
before it is even spun by a to narrow definition.
Here is my view on the above, illustrated like the referenced text:
unstable -> testing -> stable -> official stable release
| | |
| | +-> CDD_A stable -> CDD_A stable release
| | |
| | +-> CDD_B stable -> CDD_B stable release
| | |
| | +-> ...
| |
| +-> testing snapshot release
| |
| +-> CDD_A testing -> testing CDD_A snapshot release
| |
| +-> CDD_B testing -> testing CDD_B snapshot release
| |
| +-> ...
|
+ -> CDD_A unstable -> unstable CDD_A snapshot release
|
+ -> CDD_B unstable -> unstable CDD_B snapshot release
|
+-> ...
Well, this is our old fashioned view as it currently is.
But the page I quoted was about NEW_WAYS_OF_DISTRIBUTION [1].
So please do not build an artificial wall, when we might
need a doorway (perhaps with a door that never opens - but
it should be there just in case).
The drawing intends to reflect current workflow of Debian itself:
Yep - this is the problem of the drawing. It contains nothing
which is _new_ and thus belongs to a different place inside the
docs.
separates "stable" as distribution and as release, and adds testing
release. CDDs pays full respect to Debian work by now distorting it:
And while they do so we perhaps waste a big chance to enrole the
real power of the CDD concept.
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] http://people.debian.org/~tille/cdd/ch-todo.en.html#s-new_ways_of_distribution
--
http://fam-tille.de
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