Re: Terminal server under Debian-Edu
Stefan,
First of all, let me say that this is Raphael's project, so I'm really
looking to him to clarify where the project is heading in his own words.
What follows is my opinion, based on my experience with Debian Jr.
On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 07:20:58PM +0200, Stefan Padberg wrote:
> Dear Ben!
>
> I did not understand quite good what you wanted to tell me.
>5C
> There is a special need in a school environment for:
> 1. very easy installation, more easy than it will be with the future Debian
> installer.
This is the job of debian-installer, or if not, PGI, or if not, debian-cd.
(Or if none of these groups is currently solving the problem adequately, we
should be helping to ensure that they do.) Each group is working on the who
installation problem from a slightly different angle (providing basic
install infrastructure, graphical front-end, selection of and division of
packages among multi CDs). Without their work, an easy install that works
on a variety of platforms will not be possible.
I am not saying here DebianEdu should not care about this work. And I am
not saying DebianEdu members shouldn't help with this work. I'm saying
DebianEdu is not the project directly responsible for doing this work. We
could say:
"It is DebianEdu's goal to make the best use of installation tools
provided by Debian, helping Debian to ensure that they improve to
the point where the very easy installation that is required in
educational environments is achieved."
That is quite a different thing from:
"It is DebianEdu's goal to develop tools for easy installation
required in educational environments."
Without making that clear distinction between "we support devleopment of"
and "we develop", it is too easy to either:
a) get bogged down in doing too many different things and not
accomplish the core work of the subproject
or
b) end up duplicating someone else's work, diffusing the
energies of the whole Debian project by not making
efficient use of the work of sister subprojects
> 2. special pre-configured servers and clients as I have mentioned in my last
> eMail.
To the extent that the problems being solved here are both Debian-specific
and education-specific then yes, this is something DebianEdu should be
working on directly.
> 3. special software administration tools as other members already have
> mentioned (the 6-12 and the above 12 thing for instance, network
> administration, internet access control by classroom)
Part of this is arguably inside the domain of DebianEdu and part of it not.
The classroom is not the only environment where this sort of thing is
useful.
> 4. and of course special applications which will only be used in a school
> environment (like mathematical, astronomical, geographical educational
> software etc.)
That was covered in your first point in your previous email, which I said I
agreed with provided you say DebianEdu "packages", not "develops" these
things.
> What of all these is the project not supposed to do?
^^^^^^^^^^^
Just don't confuse Debian and DebianEdu. Debian is a very large,
established project with many resources, capable of doing very big things.
DebianEdu is a very small and young project with few resources, capable of
doing some little things (but not without a large result, as I will later
explain). DebianEdu developers are also Debian developers, so part of our
time is devoted to non-DebianEdu-specific things which may also,
incidentally, advance some of the goals of DebianEdu.
> And who then will
> develop these things?
>
> I only know: If there is a Debian distribution not containing most of these
> useful things I won't use it.
Hm, I never said Debian itself shouldn't contain these things. I didn't
respond to any of your very well-thought out points about what education
needs in a Linux distribution. That was all good stuff. What I responded
to instead was your summary at the end "DebianEdu should work on ...". Most
of the things you have mentioned above are things Debian as a whole should
be working towards, some of them are the special concern of DebianEdu, and
some of them are outside of the domain of Debian altogether (and in the
hands of upstream software developers, with whom we work to achieve what we
need, just as any other user with special needs does in the free software
world).
All of your suggestions have merit, really. As I said in my previous note,
I was not attacking your suggestions, but merely correcting focus. DebianEdu
is, in my mind, about working on the Debian-specific, education-specific
part of an entire Linux-for-education solution. The entire job of
assembling a complete Linux-for-education solution is way too huge for this
little project. For the tasks that we are not capable of doing ourselves,
we need to content ourselves with playing whatever support role we can
without totally draining our energies away from our core activities.
With a very clear but narrow focus, DebianEdu can accomplish very big things
indeed, with a very small number of people, because we stand on the
shoulders of the rest of the Debian project, which is working on problems
that not only face education users, but also other groups of users.
Ben
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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