Re: If Debian wants to grow, let it grow. Or: King James reading Anarchy FAQ
On Tue, Mar 23, 1999 at 03:24:56PM +0100, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
>
> I find that the suggestions sound really good, but I am in disagreement
> about one point:
>
> MB> The solution is that people can offer their own deb packages
> MB> without effort, and people can get those without effort. This way,
> MB> we can refuse to include packages without censoring them.
> [snip]
>
> IMHO, what makes Debian stronger than other distributions, is that we
> (developers) feel ourselves as being part of a community. This is exactly
> what made me abandon RedHat and come to Debian: our work is not considered
> "second class stuff" here. Indeed, our packages are officially recognized
> by going through dinstall. Frankly, if Debian is going to imitate RedHat's
> contrib, I will really consider leaving the project.
I understand you, and I agree. Note that I said "we can refuse", not that we
should do so. However, if I have software I feel useful for other people,
but if I don't think it should go into the Debian dist (for whatever reason,
stability, off-topicness, whatever), or if I have huge data collections I
want to make available, I can make use of the cool features.
This is RH contrib done right, because it is not organized. It is just a
more convenient way to access not(yet)-debianized software or other things,
like web sites etc. Wouldn't it be cool if every big web site would offer
a mirror as Debian package, updated regularly?
All important stuff should certainly be in the Debian distribution under
quality control.
but let's take for example themes (you can hardly do anything wrong), CPAn
or CTAN stuff, web sites... it can be useful to access directly from the
origin, instead of waiting for Debian to catch up (or do it at all).
> What is really called for is a better way to sort the packages by priority,
> such that we are able to build CD images with decreasing degrees of
> "relevance". I do not have a clue on how this can be done properly. Maybe
> should we do a pool among developers just prior each release?
This is not enough. We may miss some interesting stuff just because nobody
things this is relevant to Debian or not everybody wants to go through the
hassle of application. In fact, making it easier for more people to provide
(data) packages as non-developers opens Debian more to the public.
My proposal was not intended to make Debian more lean, the opposite is the
case.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org finger brinkmd@
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