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

yep,
(i cross-post to [email protected], where this should have 
been posted in first place)

Le samedi 19 Juin 2004 00:59, Enrico Zini a écrit :
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 02:07:10PM +0200, Jean-Christophe Babinet wrote:
> > 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).
>
> Well, if that is what you need, you should consider waiting until
> september and then work with the (yet unnamed) distribution made by Mark
> Shuttleworth's new company, which is intended to be an uncustomized,
> generic, stable Debian distribution with a guaranteed new release every
> 6 months.

just my 2 cents: i don't like that much the idea mark shuttlewort has of 
hiring the top 20 debian developers and make them work on something else than 
debian.

>
> We're doing something else, instead: we want to tackle those issues of
> non-profits which go beyond printing and browsing the internet.  We want
> customization.  We want to go to people and say "I'm aware of your needs".
>
> It's like the difference between industrial, large scale made dresses
> and tailor made dresses: tailor made dresses fit very well on you; large
> scale made dresses fit most people, but not very well.
>
> Windows, and most universal software, is generic enough to solve many
> problems, but people are unhappy because it doesn't really know about
> them, about what they really need.  Many people have to adapt their
> problems to the tools that they have available, ending up in doing
> things in a frustrating way or not being able to do some things at all.
>
> We work to address that.

in france, there is about 70 *millions* NPOs (more than french citizens, 
yes !).
do *you* want to go forward each one and make a customized debian for them ?

if you think so, you should bury debian-np *now* and work on custom debian 
distribution (apt-get source cdd-dev). this sounds worrying to me :(

otherwise, if your intent is to give NPOs a system that is :
1- free
2- cheap / gratis
3- usefull,
please don't mix cdd (that can build systems from "debian in my coffee 
machine" upto "debian for my 100+ nodes s/390 cluster") with debian-np (that 
is just "i want debian on my [P]PC, so that i can make my everyday work with 
it")
I work on that.

>
> In my view, if you want to do a good service, you customize software for
> your users.  You give to NPs a distribution for NPs, and to businesses a
> distribution for businesses.  Of course you want to have as much things
> as possible in common to ease support and development: that's where the
> Custom Debian ideas comes into play.
>
> We work for that.
>

NP activities vary from pure activism (syndicates, political activists, solar 
energy information center, etc, etc...) to more "productive" activities 
(social centers for drug junkies, long-term unemployed, illestrism & 
analphabetism centers,etc, etc ...)
(so businesses do.)

NP needs vary from simple desktop workstation (office suite and internet 
browser) to high-end {web, mail, mailing-list} {securized, anonymized, 
authenticated} servers (riseup.net, resist.ca, autistici.org, inventati.org 
*are* debian-np members)
(so businesses do.)

debian-NP should be the greatest common multiple of these.
I work on that.

> Of course, you don't have to agree.  Please feel free to make your
> choices.  If it's a completely generic system that you want, just sit
> down and relax: Mark and his team promised to give you a great one in
> less than 3 months.

we'll see what comes out of this venture... i just hope that the target 
audience is not the "happy [very] few".

>
> While waiting, you may want to read this:
>   http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html
> and this:
>   http://zini.ddts.net/enrico/store/lt-paper.sxw

humm, interesting. (BTW, when was the last time you met a user ?)

a++

ps: yes, i'm a bit angry of what i read. but this doesn't compromise our 
collaboration, of course :)