Re: Where is Debian going?
On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 13:46:04 -0500
Jamin W. Collins <jcollins@asgardsrealm.net> wrote:
> On Kristian A. Rink <afterimage@gmx.net> wrote:
> > Well, I guess you're making it a little too easy. Actually, I am
> > working in a store earning money by _selling_ computers, and
> > whenever I try to make people use GNU/Linux
>
> You'd most likely lose my business right there. I may be in the
> minority here, but as I see it, a sales person's job is to provide
> a service of help me purchase what I'm after. It's not their job
> to _make_ me do anything.
Of course not. Anyhow, having customers that don't just simply want
to buy a computer but merely (at least in most cases) want to have a
specific job done with a computer and need a solution right for
this, I will provide them with a solution. If GNU/Linux is, in my
opinion, the best solution to their needs (and, in most cases it has
proven to be, by now), this is exactly what I will tell them. That
doesn't mean that they will not get, say, MS Windows if they really
want it, but that's rarely what I would recommend them to choose if
they ask me.
> > thinks; being in trouble in those situations because I like
> > Debian, I don't install anything else on those machines
>
> These are the decisions of your business practices and are yours
> to make. However, they have littel bearing on Debian.
Indeed, they're without bearing on Debian at all, but they surely
have an impact on my doings. Actually, besides those version-number
things, most people of course _expect_ to get a system installed
onto their machines which is as reliable and stable as somehow
possible, and if this is not the case, it probably is likely to get
both us and our customers in trouble in some situations. People
mentioned above usually don't say, like, "I want Windows XP" or "I
want SuSE Linux on my box" but "I want a system that does reliably
what I need to do with it". Anyhow, this still sometimes leaves me
with the need to explain why the software installed on the machines
probably is _not_ the latest version released to date. Again, this
is not a problem of Debian, at all, but it sorta makes me understand
the view of Guiseppe, the original poster of this thread.
> > of any Debian package yet and it always takes a lot of time to
> > convince people to go with stable rather than with latest
> > software packages.
>
> Again, I don't see this as a sales person's job. Let the customer
> have what they want.
Nothing else is what I am doing. This doesn't change my view on
Debian as the standard system I am installing when being about to
choose.
> > much, let's say, abiword has increased its capabilities of
> > handling right this sort of files, I just can say that
> > sometimes, though only sometimes and in very special cases,
> > recent software actually __is__ needed.
>
> And, as has been stated numerous times before, this can easily be
> accomplished on a case-by-case basis with apt and pinning. The
> latest-and-greatest versions of your apps can be pulled from
> unstable (or other unofficial sources).
Sure, of course; that's what I am doing on my systems by now (at
least in some cases when I am not worried about system stability,
which is why I am not selling any KDE3 systems by now). Anyhow,
this makes me think about the idea Guiseppe wrote about having a
rock-solid base system and desktop environment on top of it which is
a _little_ less stable yet a little more recent (guess that's where
a loss of stability is the price we have to pay).
Cheers,
Kris
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