On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 14:27 -0400, James Tremblay wrote:

On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 18:30 +0200, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

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Il giorno dom, 08/07/2007 alle 09.14 -0400, James Tremblay ha scritto:

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Gentleman, I would like to point out that the teXlive\Tex\LaTex debate seems to be concerned with a relatively small group(in a world domination approach of distribution, which openSUSE needs) of university\scientific users.

I really think it's important to keep existing users before thinking to the world domination, which is, however, far if it will ever happen.

So you would rather hinder spreading openSUSE than to separate packages onto alternative sources?

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Excluding packages like LaTeX from media means excluding from the user base an important group of users: students, teachers, university labs. They won't accept to install LaTeX on each machine separately. You've to keep in mind that in many universities PC's are directly maintained by users and not by admins.

These users don't already install MSOffice from a separate media when they need it? Separating the OS installation media from the products is a well established format. Ubuntu, is catching on quite well and they use installation repositories for all but the OS.

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Plus, universities and research centres are where students (future users) get in contact with Linux. Do you think they will choose a distribution which requires additional media to use LaTeX (many teachers and scientific papers requires it) or a distribution which allows to install it comfortably at the installation time?

If they are university level users than they are smart enough to decipher the location of an additional product media when downloading openSUSE and choose to download the LaTex product media as well, or do you assume they are to lazy to download an extra disk? In which case how do they get the non-oss media? It's a simple economics problem, how do you get the extra software to the people that want it without it costing you extra money every time someone who doesn't want it downloads. You provide multiple media and installation sources in a well defined library. Just because it's free software doesn't mean openSUSE should pay all the bills of your getting it!

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This program group seems to take enough space to be on it's own CD\DVD. As openSUSE moves towards the idea that the base install should meet the needs of a larger group, i.e Home Users, some of the current groups are going to have to accept that there favorite program will need to be on an "Add-On" product CD\DVD.

We are not talking of creating an additional DVD or CD. We are talking about leaving LaTeX only on FTP.

see above remark containing Ubuntu reference.

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In terms of sharing them, this will increase the ease in which you distribute the programs to your students \ co-workers by alleviating the requirement that you have to distribute and entire distro to your students \ co-workers. Your schools \ departments could simply start saying openSUSE X.x or SLED X.x are necessary to take part in course X \ work in department X, much like they do now for other topics, and you then hand out the Tex\TeXlive DVD.

Right. I see the freedom in forcing someone to use OpenSUSE or SLED because someone else decided. The original idea was to use Linux (what distribution I like) and I will find the software I need because it works on all distributions. It's one of the principles which brought Linux to be what it is today.

Now your just pissing in the wind! Schools\Universities force homogenization on students all the time. Some Schools even force you to buy your laptop from a list of accepted versions or even from the school bookstore. You say it yourself "and I will find the software I need because it works on all distributions", let them find it on software.opensuse.org nicely package specifically for the version they are on and easily downloaded\mirrored to the schools local repository...and they all have one!

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We as community members are responsible to the distribution and it's well being,(that old "the good of many" thing) and in order for openSUSE to move forward it must make life easier for a much bigger group, as the 1-cd install idea does.

Right. Let the home users use the 1 CD install. And put what UNIX and Linux users want and expect to be part of the distribution on the DVD.

No one needs to download a 4 gig DVD just for a few programs and its download should eventually be discontinued (Bandwidth costs openSUSE too!)and those buying the retail version should get 3 disks; 1: OS base install (CD-1 of choice) 2: additional products (everything on the current OSS DVD minus the OS) 3: non-oss

if a particular group wants something like the "Tex" it can be constructed into an "Add-on" ISO very easily, maybe even with an on-line tool to do so, since there is already a YaST module under construction for this. It could even start a new business line for openSUSE like those adverts you see for buying copies of Linux distro's, only openSUSE could also offer any software in the build-service and any arch packed onto an ISO and mailed for $X.00

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To win, Linux has to be accessible to everyone (another basic principle), also those without a fast connection, and they're a lot, for various reasons. That's why it's important to have at least one "complete" set of media.

In that case, a library of downloadable\shipable sub-product RPM's\ISO's makes even more sense, i.e. I can afford an hour of downloads this month and I want the new openSUSE and the scientific tools group, I get CD1-gnome in 15 minutes and the scientific tools in another 20, Now I have 25 minutes to get a new game or two ;) vs I got the core dvd in 70 minutes hope I can scrape up the extra cash somehow. I shouldn't take from openSUSE or my co-workers\family any unnecessary bandwidth.

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With kind regards, A.

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-- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Newmarket,NH http://en.opensuse.org/Education "let's make a difference"

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