On Sunday 11 September 2005 09:57 pm, Scott Leighton wrote:
On Sunday 11 September 2005 6:53 pm, Alejandro Forero Cuervo wrote:
I've been reading most of the thread on package creation and trust and I still think we should be considering a different approach of allowing direct involvement and participation of third parties on the construction of OpenSUSE.
I believe having a lot of packages (without allowing redundant packages) would be good, even if some of them are not as properly maintained as they could be.
Well, as an end-user my perspective differs. I plan to buy the box set when it comes out in October. As far as I'm concerned, the quality of the packages is a direct reflection on Novell/SUSE. If there are broken or low low quality packages, it will reflect poorly on Novell/SUSE.
Now, if you are simply talking about making a repository of packages available (but not on the official DVD/CD's I buy from SUSE), then that's a different matter, but if it's in the boxed set I buy, SUSE is 100% responsible in my mind. I don't think it would be a good business decision to allow any low quality items into the official distro.
Scott ==========
I think I would have to agree with Scott here Alejandro. If you want to keep it just Linux and out of reach for many users/converts, doing things as you describe, would be an excellent method. Debian is stable because it uses solid, stable versions of the programs released for Linux, but they are also older and dated. Debian is also one of the more difficult distros to install and maintain, even for users already acclimated to Linux. That's not to say Debian doesn't have it's place, but it's not something that will convince users to move to Linux. You look at the whole thing as an experienced user having probably used Linux for quite a long time, right? You need to step back and take another look at what needs to be done to encourage computer users to take the plunge. In this case, many times less is more. Most users don't need 10 word processors or 5 browsers, etc., so why inundate them with so much? There are those of us that love this stuff though, as I'm sure you are one, so I'm happy that SuSE provides them to us. But when there are already plenty provided that are more heavily requested, why add more that are not? I haven't understood why Krusader hasn't been included in the package either, but it's a simple compile and easy to add for me. As long as the tools are made available to us to accomplish these things, shouldn't that be enough? If you have a desire for other things, start your own repository of files approved for SuSE install, as Scott mentioned. That would be the best way for users to have access to those things, if they want/need them, don't you think? I, like Scott, expect a certain amount of bleeding edge, but I also expect a stable setup as well. If you check around, I think you will find that is something many Windows users are tired of, the unstable nature of the OS. I don't think we want to give them another, that's even more difficult to install and maintain. end of line Lee