Re: Reality check! [was: Re: Debian goes big business?]
On Sat, Jan 23, 1999 at 08:51:25PM +0000, thomas lakofski wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Raul Miller wrote:
>
> > thomas lakofski <tommy@88.net> wrote:
> > > I also am disappointed with the attitude of some people towards making
> > > these things easier to do. Is it some kind of techno-snobbery, maybe?
> >
> > In the context of initial installation, I think it's laziness -- a
> > refusal to examine problems.
> >
> > That said, the boot-floppies people seem to be making progress (perhaps
> > not as fast as everyone would like, but better than what lots of other
> > people have been doing).
>
> OK, since it seems that this kind of thing will probably only happen in a
> commercial context, maybe it would make sense to arrange commercial
> sponsorship of Debian in a bigger way.
I think the first part of your sentence is a bit unfair. To make
installation easier requires hard work. If it would be easy, it would have
been long done. The trick is to keep flexibility (and don't tell me SuSE is
flexibel). Doing it easy for the newbie and configurable for the experienced
user requires a well though out configuration and administration system. At
least for multi-installation this is currently developed on the
debian-admintool list.
Hardware autodetection would be another good thing, but only if implemented
well and reliable. This does only work with open hardware specifications.
It's not the lack of interest, but the lack of real, skilled contributions
in this area, which addresses all concerns.
Needless to say that any contribution is welcome, be it from volunteers or
commercial organizations. But let's not drag Debian too deep into agreements
with commercial contributors. If you can convince a company to write a good
installation procedure, I am sure nobody will neglect it, provided it is
technically convincing. Debian does make decisions on technical grounds, and
I would not like to see this changed.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god." Debian GNU/Linux finger brinkmd@
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