Re: Release Date of Woody?
*Please do not CC me*
On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 12:15:00AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
::SNIP? SNIP!::
> Woody is going to be a debian release. I just said we do not
> have release goals. You turn around and ask me what the goals for
> woody are.
>
> If you want project goals, here are a few (well, some of these
> goals may not be shared by all developers)
> a) Create the best Linux distribution possible
> b) Create the most free distribution possible
> c) end world hunger
> d) create a user friendly dostribution
*> e) create a distribution useable by kids
*> f) create a distribution fit for kids
This is a worthwhile goal, but (depending upon your definition of "kids") will be very difficult to accomplish with such a security-oriented distribution. Assuming that the kids you refer to are ~9 years old, and that their parents are not users, there are many problems which may or may not occur, including:
1- Lack of knowledge
2- Unwillingness to read documentation
3- Inability to understand error messages
4- Nowhere to get age-appropriate help
5- Highly insecure systems
6- Inability to remember passwords, leading to #5
7- Inability to correctly admin the system, leading to #5
8- Inability to understand text (may not have learned/mastered English yet, though new installer should help)
...and much more. True, some current users have this problem now, but many fewer than there may be if many kids start to use Debian. IMHO, Windows (not NT or 2000) is more suited to serving childrens' computing needs because of more user-friendliness, lower security standards, ability to fix problems without user-interaction, independence from the internet.
I know that some people will agree with me, and some people will disagree, but please do not start a Windows vs. Linux flamewar or anything else of that sort.
> g) create a secure distribution
> h) create an embeddable distribution
> i) create a distribution to base a router on
> j) create a distribution to base a firewall on
> k) create a distribution that is popular
> l) devise a means of getting off this planet
> m) create a distribution that is the easiest to install
>
> I can go for hours, tabulating the goals that the project
> has. Feel free to pitch in and add your own take on this, and feel
> free to pitch in and help.
>
> manoj
> --
> Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for
> six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else.
> (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
> 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
--xsdg
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