Re: RH and GNOME
Hi,
>>"Petra" == Petra, Kevin J Poorman <ewigin@SoftHome.net> writes:
Petra> As one who is completly confused by your completly political
Petra> idea
What do you mea, completely political? I have served on
standards committees, and indeed, on several policy making bodies,
and for none of them would vague comments like "we need to be more
user friendly" pass for technical proposals.
Read Ian Jacksons proposed constitution for a tight technical
proposal for the day to day affairs of a distributed volunteer
organization like Debian, if you need examples. Or read Rob Brownings
proposals for emacsen policy.
Having started this conversation off on the wrong foot by
classifying my objections as "political", let us see what we can do
salvage the rest of the message.
Petra> of a "technical proposal" I would like to give you a exact
Petra> idea of what I think debian should do. but first: I'm in the
Petra> process of trying to find a set of install scripts that I can
Petra> look at and vivisect.
You mean you have not even looked at the scripts before coming
up with all this? Yeesh.
Petra> However they seem to be the deepest darkest seekrets of
Petra> debian, and as of yet, I haven't found a copy of
Petra> dinstall... (although I did, find a package to creat boot
Petra> flopys... I will look into that further, as soon as I dispell
Petra> (or try) the fears that I'm just trying to waste ppl's time.
You just proved you are wasting peoples time, really.
Petra> No, I haven't yet played with apt, however to my knowlage apt
Petra> isn't truly complete yet, and is therefore I don't think I
Petra> should be jugeing it Yet. however all the things you mentioned
Petra> are already underway and therefore, not needing discussion.
So, essentially, you have not researched what is under way, or
what exists, and just came up with objections? Based on what, pray
tell?
Petra> I'm not ignoreing what is underway, however it has little
Petra> relavence to what I'm trying to get accross.
I see. You do not know what the boot floppies have to offer,
you have not looked at them, or at apt, and you are sure they have
nothing to do with what you are saying. You must be clairvoyant.
Petra> as for being constructive, what methods do you sugjest for
Petra> this... I thought the proper way was to bring it up for
Petra> discusion on devel.
Yes, when you have something concrete, and when you have some
idea of what exists and what is planned.
Petra> in a previous e-mail I discribed in a list what I thought
Petra> debian should do, if that was not constructive enouph please
Petra> read the forthcoming message titled "tech proposal for manoj"
Petra> please read twice before responding.
I did. I think you still lack details to be constructive.
Petra> I'm truly sorry if you thought I was meaning to say that
Petra> windows has manpages. what I meant was that debian, should
Petra> provide a easyer install mechininism with yet more
Petra> documentation available for newbie mode.
Whats wrong with man pages? I find that the best method for a
quick and dirty refresh, invaluable when you are in a hurry and are
unsure of the details. For more in depth tutorials, I like info pages
(the lack of a grep that crosses page boundaries without investing in
external search engones means that HTML is a very poor choice (I know
it is our preferred format. That was an argument I did not win))
Petra> NO aperantly debian, is only developed for those, who ALREADY
Petra> know enouph knowlage to use linux on it's own.
>> Correct.
Petra> agian I ask why is this?
It is practical. It is possible. We do not decieve users into
believing that maintaining a UNIX workstation is a task for those who
have no idea what UNIX is. I think that is merely being honest.
>> My attitude is that I help those who help themselves. I am not
>> very sympathetic to people who want everything right now, and do not
>> want to spend time to learn, yes. If you think this is user
>> unfreindly, so be it.
Petra> What if the user has no idea where to start looking for
Petra> documentation? ... I just did a clean install of deb 2.0
Petra> found no refrence anywhere in the install that /usr/doc
Petra> existed... why?
Ask. I would immediately tell you about "The UNIX programming
environment". Locvely book. Matt Welsh's books from the LDP are not
bead either.
>> If you think that is not enough, I am sure people would be
>> grateful for patches / concrete suggestions.
Petra> my patches would not be welcome... hell my ideas are aperantly
Petra> not welcome here.
Concrete ideas are always welcome.
Petra> I was aware of most of these, good point for you... Now why
Petra> can't these type of help systems be available for install,
Have you looked?
Petra> or all major packages.
As I said, we are all grateful for patches.
Petra> I'm under the impression that short of out coding you in some
Petra> pre-schoolish contest Nothing will change your mind.
Please, that statement is pretty juvenile. I respect a number
of people in the Debian community, and none of us have ever been in a
juvenile contest like that (the very fact that such a thing even
occurred to you is telling).
Petra> I'm still stymeid by what you mean for tech proposal, but
Petra> hopefully you will be able to understand what I'm talking
Petra> about ... I promise to use small words.
I see. Another juvenile gibe. Have you ever put together a
technical proposal? Have you ever seen an RFC? Look at technical
proposal on the archives of the policy group. Read the web standard
proposal. Read the policy document. Draft something with that level
of detail, where you have actually thought the low level details
out.
Petra> did I say that? ... or did you make that up. I think you made
Petra> that up,
Does this not imply you call me a liar?
Petra> because you assume that everyone who doesn't see it
Petra> your way, must NEED and WANT a gui. all I'm saying is that a
Petra> life jacket would be good for our users...
>>
>> In other words, you do not even think a GUI is what we need,
>> you want another mindless platitude. "A life Jacket", indeed.
Petra> you stated in another e-mail that ad hominem attacks are
Petra> something you try to avoid, yet you just painted your self a
Petra> liar.
Really? I was at point trying to discover if there was
anything concrete at all in your message. I had hoped that I had
found something: you were in favour of a GUI. Then you dashed my
hopes, talking on about life jackets. At no point did I ever say
anything about you; all I have ever said has been about your
statements.
You, sir, on the other hand, call me a liar straight out.
Petra> twisting my words to fit your ideas of what YOU think I
Petra> want, equates imo to calling me a liar to my face. sound like
Petra> your trying for personal attacks.
Unless you stop talking in vague, generic terms, your message
is always going to be subect to interpretation. A concrete statement
shall mitigate all this (for you) unsavoury interpretations.
>>
>> >> What bugs? I find the GPL to work exactly as it should. We
>> >> need a strong license that ptomotes and actively propogates free
>> >> software, and the GPL does that.
>>
Petra> while I haven't memorised the entire gpl, what I have read leves me to
Petra> think that there are a fewq "bugs" in it.
>>
>> Again, when asked for specifics, you balk. I think you are
>> merely trolling.
Petra> the gpl has flaws that where explained to me by a lawyer
Petra> friend of mine, even I don't understand completly what he has
Petra> said to me.
SApecifics, man, specifics. Don't repeat what you do not
understand. Don't criticise something based on a third person
criticism that you have no understanding of.
The very least you can do is be able to defend your stance.
Petra> I have asked him to sumise the flaws he has found. and explain
Petra> them in simple english. when this happens I will let you
Petra> know. your not the only one with time constriants and belive
Petra> it or not, some of us have to work instead of spouting off
Petra> about how someone has wrong ideas.
Yet another tired attack. I never said you had wrong ideas. I
said you do not have any idea that I can see -- yet. By the way, you
mean "You are not the only one", not "Your" ...
Petra> sounds like you couldn't pass one anyway.... well with your
Petra> reading skills and all.
>>
>> Amusing. So far, there had been little ad hominem attacks in
>> this discussion. It is my beief that resorting to personal attacks
>> means that ones technical argument is weak.
Petra> well whats that say about you. even that statment right there
Petra> is an attack on me. don't hold yourself so high, you can't
Petra> touch ground.
Really? I did not know you had a MS certification; so it was
not really an attack. Maybe I should really apologize for attempting
to engage in a battle of wits without ascertaining if my opponent was
unarmed.
For the record, I have seen nothing to change my mind about
those who hold certifications.
>>
>> Most of the people I have come across with the
>> certification were people who lacked formal education in the area,
>> and were indeeed, technicians, and lacked the ability to think beond
>> the envelope.
Petra> I think that was probably the way the test is given. this
Petra> certification I'm thinking of would not just be a simple test,
Petra> that one could study for. rather it would be something more
Petra> like a doctoral thesous defence.
Then I fail to see what purpose it would serve. Those who
could actually pass a doctoral thesis defense would have no need for
certification; those who aspire for certification would never achieve
it. Ask anyone who has ever succesfully defended a thesis.
manoj
--
Guard against verbal unruliness. Be restrained in speech. Abandoning
verbal wrong doing, lead a life of verbal well doing. 233
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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