Re: project status

Michael Miller wrote:
> ok guys... you are misinterpreting what i am trying to say. I know you
> guys might not care about the average Joe, but look at it this way: it
> can turn into profit by selling more cds from the shop-or by selling
> support. While i know the redhat updater crashes a lot, that does not
> mean that the gentoo one has to :). In all seriousness you guys are
> amazing programmers. I just think that it would be benificial to
> everyone if gentoo reached the mainstream. If gentoo was user friendly
> enough(user friendly != no ability to tweak settings) it would take
> away customers from microsoft, and possibly become the domininant
> OS/Distro. I know that gentoo was made to be tweakable. What i suggest
> is creating tools to change CFLAGS, explaining every option. This
> allows for both user friendlyness and ability to tweak. You can label
> everything so the average joe can figure it out, while still
> maintaining the ability to change settings.

Again with the profit thing. Gentoo is a not-for-profit organization. The money 
that is made from the Store is used for things like maintaining the 
infrastructure (web, rsync, mail, etc.). We don't care about taking over the 
world to the become The One OS/Distro.

As for an automatic updater, it is very difficult to write an updater that can 
merge config files and other changes without user intervention. If you'd like to 
write one that works perfectly, feel free. We're always willing to take 
user-submitted code :P

As I said in another email, there is already a project beginning for creating a 
series of GUI tools for Gentoo configuration. If you want the tools right now, 
write them yourself.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney
Gentoo Linux Developer
Installer Project