[Debian-np-devel] A question to Debian NP team

[Benj. Mako Hill]

--eWt5Jy3V6IQl161k
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 02:07:10PM +0200, Jean-Christophe Babinet wrote:
> I'm sorry not to be a technician, so I can't participate and help
> you. My participation can only be at the level of the ideas.

Many (even most?) of my goals with Debian-NP have not been primarily
technical. I imagine you can provide a huge amount of help in
technical ways. You've certainly not got anything to feel sorry for!

> I propose to quit the idea of making a distrib for a certain kind of
> organisation (the NPOs), and go the the idea to make a distrib that
> fullfills the basic needs of computer networks and desktops, and
> that is thought to make support available (essentially updates and
> distant maintenance).

There are a number of reasons that focusing on specific
sub-communities of computer users makes a lot of sense to me.

Some of these reasons are technical: focusing only on the common
problems of desktop non-profit users gives us a smaller set of
problems than if we also consider servers, graphic designers, video
editors, gamers, guys running Beowulf clusters, and business
folk. There is overlap -- between some groups more than others -- but
minimizing the size of this set simplifies things allows for a more
simple technical solution.

The non-technical reasons are, in my opinion, no less
important. Allowing for the creation of targeted communities, for
targeting "advertising" and for smaller and more relevant and
interconnected support communities can be helpful. Many non-profit
organizations are interested and involved in Debian-NP as a project
and as a community -- even though it may not be all that much
different than your default Morphix or Debian-Desktop install at the
moment -- because it's goal is to work with non-profits.

To get back to you point: there *is* a lot of overlap and it's crazy
to think that all (even most!) of the work we're doing to support
non-profits should be limited to civil society. Along the same lines,
it would be just as crazy to think that the work of others working
with other for-profits (and schools, and governments, etc.) is
something we should not use.

I think that this is the reason we're doing this in Debian and taking
advantage of this should be just as high a goal as creating a distro
for a group of users (they are complementary, not competing, goals
after all). This is he reason we're spinning our wheels networking
with groups like Skolelinux and putting effort into making sure that
the world of custom distributions a vibrant and highly interconnected
one. We want to be able to benefit (and in fact have) from the work of
other custom distributions and we want them to benefit from our
work. We want the lines between our projects to blur. We want people
people to pick and choose between the bits and pieces they like from
different custom distro.

If you find that a distro for non-profits is perfect, or almost
perfect, for other types of organizations, run with it. If you can
think of a few ways to make it better for this slightly different
group, I'd be happy to help you create a light fork of NP and to
foster a different (or highly overlapping, or anything in between)
community. We'll work together toward a common goal within the context
of Debian. This is the power of CDDs!

Regards,
Mako


--=20
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako@debian.org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/


--eWt5Jy3V6IQl161k
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFA26Tfic1LIWB1WeYRAniCAKCjYnHGfQIx4XHi0R+OCfPaQ7ZpxACdES5P
TdYvGKONo7cbX5FDSZIQoNM=
=lX6o
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--eWt5Jy3V6IQl161k--