Re: Linux Core Consortium
On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 05:11:32PM -0500, Ian Murdock wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 23:07 +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> > Ian Murdock <imurdock@progeny.com> writes:
>
> I understand the LSB is beginning to think about the multiarch issue,
> and I suspect Debian is far ahead of others in terms of practical
> experience with this problem; so, it's not only reasonable to expect
> the LSB will help resolve this potential nightmare,
> but also that Debian could be at the forefront of helping resolve it.
>
[Ha, ha, only serious here - please don't dismiss this out of hand]
OK, I'll bite - your signature (kept below) is apposite here :)
Dare to dream for a moment or ten. I owe you personally a debt of
gratitude as I do to Bruce. Bruce's UserLinux isn't here yet as far
as I can see - Progeny has moved from Progeny Linux to Progeny
services/infrastructure "stuff" - but you are both experienced
with trying to forge the best distribution there is.
Get together with Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu: pool your efforts.
Bruce can pull in industry contacts - Progeny can produce heavyweight
support - Ubuntu can produce a "free but commercial" Debian. Pull in
Mepis if they'll talk to the consortium. Build an LSB compliant
Debian with ISV support - hell, if you'll provide really heavyweight
support of _any_ kind for Debian in the UK, I might not need to push
my bosses so hard :) Get HP or whoever to commit to something Debian-based
on its merits.
Produce a "commercial grade" Debian you feel happy selling to Oracle/SAP/IBM
or whoever. If you can do that, then alien may do much of the rpm
conversion for LSB. Don't fork altogether from Debian but work with the
Project to build good stuff and help each other. Compromises need to be
made to produce a commercial distribution - so make them and make them
explicitly but allow people to cross-grade to the Debian we know and
love if they need to apt-get stuff not in your commercial distro _AT
THEIR RISK_ (though if, for example, I choose to install frozen-bubble
that act, in and of itself, shouldn't affect e.g. Oracle so
shouldn't affect my support).
Don't dumb down Debian - don't compromise on the good stuff like
multi-architecture, structured dependencies and build quality. Bring
other distributions up to scratch on this.
The commercial world is simultaneously potentially too big for any one of
Ubuntu/Progeny/UserLinux to go it completely alone and too small for big
businesses to appreciate and accept minor differences in style and feel
between the various Debian derivatives
This ought to be practicable given goodwill on all sides - everyone wins
in this stone soup game.
Now can we get back to releasing a new Debian release on which you can
base all this wonderful stuff ?? :)
Andy
> "All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in
> the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was
> vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may
> act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." -T.E. Lawrence
>
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