Re: Anarchy! Yes, Anarchy!
Dave Cinege:
>
> On Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:13:22 +0200 (MET DST), E.L. Meijer \(Eric\) wrote:
>
> >Dave Cinege:
> >> A donation to 'debian' meant supporting the deveopers directly in some way,
> >> offering bandwidth, and contributing to the project. There were no direct bills to
> pay.
> >> The project could never fold unless the developers decided to just walk away.
> >>
> >> Then Debian suddenly had to get orginized, and become 'something'. It's now a
> >> company. It now wants money. It now has expensives. It now determines what
> is
> >> and is not 'official'. I don't like it. It was fine the way it was before.
> >
> >Yeah, it was fine to have a screwed up 1.0 version on InfoMagic, it was
> >fine to see the last two versions on InfoMagic sets come out crippled
> >and severely crippled respectively. NOT. And InfoMagic was the only
> >way I could get a Debian distribution until recently.
>
> And the simple existence of the corp did not fix it!
>
> >It seems to me that the people currently `venting their shit' on Debian
> >cannot imagine what is good for an ordinary user like me who isn't able
> >to download an entire distribution from the net and doesn't care about
> >the latest minute patches. I appreciate a _stable_ distribution on
> >CD-ROM that is easily available in my next door book shop. Therefore,
> >the Official Debian CDRom is the best thing that recently happened to
> >the Debian project.
>
> Bull. It puts other at odds with the 'officials' in the project.
> There is no reason someone couldn't have come up with this 'stable' release CD on
> their own. There is no reseason Bruce could not have done it, and offered it in his
> personal capacity.
Bull to you. I know Debian. A lot of people know Debian. Fewer people
know Bruce. One day, Bruce will leave the project (thanks for the great
work, Bruce!), but Debian will remain. If I see an official Debian CD I
know that it is made by someone who knows what (s)he is doing, and who
tested it. What do I know if I see Debian CD `by Bruce Perens', unless
I know who this is? The point is not that `anybody' couldn't have done
it, the point is some kind of certification for which you don't need to
know the people who did it personally. And whatever you say, the
Official 1.3.1 CD was the best Debian CD I ever had.
> > If Official Debian CD's will become widely
> >available, that is a good thing as well, and if a new revision
> >numbering scheme can help, it is in my interest and in the interest of
> >the large group of users who want _access_ to a high quality
> >distribution.
>
> If you buy a CD that says 1.3 on it you can't be sure what you're getting.
> Was that the 1.3 that had a bug with XX peice of hardware and couldn't install.
You can never be sure what you're getting since bugs that show up in the
future cannot be known. That's why we need a well tested Official
Debian CD.
> Hiding things from the users is typical Microsoft, large company, marketing *tatics*
> They don't care if it runs, just that you buy the product. That's not right.
> Certainly not for a (supposedly) free software project.
>
> Listen, getting CD's out is a good thing. But:
>
> A) It is not right for Debian Inc, to have an official part in it.
It _is_ a good thing, because Debian is going to get the bad name or the
credits for a CD. You and I know that InfoMagic screwed up several times.
Most people will conclude that Debian doesn't work if they bought the
recent InfoMagic set. Now Debian can refer people to the official set,
and take responsibility and credit for it.
>
> B) The distribution should not change to suite the needs of cookie cutters.
The distribution hasn't changed to suit the needs of any cookie
cutter. Only the naming scheme. This is a minor detail.
Eric Meijer
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
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