Re: ????: Re: ????: A few comments about Knoppix 5.1 [bugs & philosphy]
On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 01:12:46PM +0000, Manolis Mathioudakis wrote:
> What's your opinion on the other issues I was talking about ?
Dear Manolis,
Answering your complete mail (where it is not so easy to tell which text
is from you, which from others, who said what, when not following ALL
related mails on the list) would, at the time being, take quite a long
time that I instead try to put into the most urgent bugfixes, and my
answer would potentially lead to a technically unproductive thread of
discussions of personal opinions.
Which doesn't mean hat I have no opinion. Instead, I can agree with a
lot of things you said. But these are problems that neiher I nor you can
solve on our own.
When I have more spare time, I'll be glad to answer more.
Just in short (for your and gilpels questions):
- We didn't give up on the installer. It's just not a top priority,
because it's not Knoppix main purpose to be installed on harddisk. There
are other distributions which are designed for installation, and do a
much better job in this. We may adopt a better installer from them any
time. There may even be derivates of Knoppix that come with their own
installer.
- I don't know how to fix the ca/cf keyboard issue. Really. I don't even
know why it appeared between the KDE release in 4.0 to 5.0. If you have
a simple fix, like "cp $file1 $location2", please send it to me and I
will put it in the next release. I also don't know about all KDE
internal structures and configuration objects. It's a bug that should be
fixed upstream, then it will be fixed in ALL distributions that use KDE,
on the next upgrade.
- The kicker bug is surely the most annoying for now, in spite of the
possible workarounds. We've fixed that, but others serious ones (missing
Java support in iceweasel (firefox) on the CD) are pending, so we have
to set some kind of deadline for the issue of a bugfix release and
simply CAN'T do more in this time. 4.1.07.
- Bandwidth/wasted downloads: My own current lack thereof is no so bad,
since I am in the happy situation of being able to do a lot of things
remotely, and have friends at "the lab" for doing tests. As for the
downloaders, those who are already downloading will still do so if there
is a Buglist on the mirrors. Unfrtunately, few people read those things.
Removing the isos would probably cause more of a panic than it is worth,
not to count the number of really corrupt downloads this would cause.
The kicker disappearance when clicking on the switcher is not a bug that
would shred your PC to pieces or something. If badwidth is expensive, it
may make sense to just order a burned CD or DVD by postal mail from one
of the vendors for a few $. These vendors, on the other hand, are
reading this list and are aware of updates and bugfixes to come, and can
delay their issues accordingly. People who are downloading, will
"automatically" download the newest image, so the 5.1.0 downloads will
finish after a while when 5.1.1 is issued.
- I am a little puzzled by the fact that the kicker bug has not been
reported more often yet, even that so many people have been downloading
5.1.0 already. Maybe it's not even as frequently happening as I thought?
- Knoppix, the free download version is, after all, "experimental
software". We are not SELLING A PRODUCT here. We offer a live system
that you can test and use at your own risk, as an open source project
that lives from community support and feedback, and I personally think
that this works extremely well. However, we (as in Knopper.Net) also DO
commercial versions where people pay real money for software
development, and get warranty and fixed release dates including a
project plan for their, non-public, versions in return. We have to live
off something, too. ;-) So, it is not a matter of "commercial vs. free
software" philosophy. If you prefer closed-source, and can accept its
license restrictions, that's your preference. I personally see no
advantage in closed-source, none. If you spend money, you can have all
the warranty and professionality that you assume for commercial software,
in open source software as well.
- _I_ like the background picture. ;-)
- ... more, but have to get back to work. ;-)
Regards
-Klaus Knopper
Reply to: