Distribution plans.
How will the HURD ultimately be distributed?
Is the idea to follow the Linux model (many distributions) or
something more like the FreeBSD model (one distribution)?
There are obvious drawbacks and advantages to both. I'd like to suggest
one method that I think might appease both schools of thought. (Which
might be very obvious and everyone is going "duh", or not. I don't know)
Offer the authoritive "official" HURD distribution which will include the
entire GNU software base plus some added bonuses (seperate or included)
and set up the official distribution site as www.gnu.org. The GNU OS could
be offered from that site and all will be well.
To achieve the level of diversity that Linux has, "Value Adding" could be
highly encouraged. "GNU HURD for Mission Critical Servers" would be
offered by someone other than GNU because it's more of a niche package as
well as "GNU HURD for the Desktop!" or whatever.
It is much too early to be discussing something like this but we should
probably give thought to this soon before it starts to "fragment" like
Linux did. I don't see Linux as really fragmented but it'd be nice if
it had a central authority to handle any issues that might come up
(like that libc5/libc6 thing).
Developers probably want to be assured that if their software works on the
"official" HURD distribution, it'll work on most distros that have added
value. Not all, but probably more than if they were to test their software
against a VA'd version of it.
Oh, also. I'm pretty sure we want to discourage proprietary software
running on the HURD (ie, linking to HURD's libraries). Will the HURD be
100% GPL or will some parts of it be Lesser GPL?
What about software that can be considered free software but aren't
specifically GPL?
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