On Thursday 2010-06-24 13:58, Pavol Rusnak wrote:
2.) Key ideas:
* reduce the number of packages in Factory - provide smaller, stable, high quality core distro - provide Long Term Support (LTS) for this reduced set - core suitable for servers - available for more platforms (including ARM, PowerPC, etc.) * provide platform for building derivatives around core distro (onion model) - building blocks - software grouped by theme (Build Service - repositories)
I object to this strategy. A few years ago, there were voices that said "but Debian has more packages", now that we have the OBS, the problem still is not really gone. First you would have to add extra repositories, that alone is unacceptible. Having to manually add packman & personal repo already does not scale to well. Already today, we see posts by forum visitors (and/or other communication media) who seem to have utterly many reopsitories just because they think it is cool or something, when in fact, they are on the edge of breaking something in the process, and nobody wants to deal with the "mess" of finding where exactly in those umpteenth repositories the problem comes from. I also am inclined to call this a Windows model, where you spend extra time installing all the non-core stuff. Linux distributions' strengths have always been to have more software agglomerated in a single location. Then, repositories often carry packages also found in others. It raises the problem which to choose.
- infrastructure for building spinoffs (Build Service - kiwi image build / SUSE Studio) - spin-offs promotion ("gallery" for spin-offs with ratings, download links, etc.) * support diversity - openSUSE as a base for MeeGo, OpenWRT and other projects - desktop spin-offs for users (KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce) - specialized spin-offs like Education, Photo edition
openSUSE(:Factory) is the effort that has been put into unification, and the proposed strategy just pulls it apart again. As if the world and its users did not already have enough problems choosing which distribution to use of the many (distrowatch lists 317), this strategy would add another handful. (I certainly don't mind live CDs or installer CDs that carry only part of the packages, but the end result should be that zypper should, out of the box without adding extra repositories, give access to the base repo, that is, /distribution/XY/repo.) Letting the distribution split into spin-offs also causes update headaches. Someday a spin's maintainer ceases to be able to track it all, or wanders of to other interests, you are stuck. No timely updates, and the failing attempt to get the dependency hell right when trying to pull a package that also happens to be included in another spin. Getting together or disbanding oneself. I prefer the former. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org