Re: Discuss list

Kyle Bresin wrote:
> =

> Still here.
> =

> I love my trustix 2.2 installs, and by the list of updates that keep =

> popping up in swup, it is definitely being supported to suit my needs.

Seems to me that's the only part Nived (the sole TSL developer) really =

has time to do. And since 2.2 is the current stable version of TSL =

(since November 8. 2004), he has no choice. The 3.1 release should have =

been released 6 months after 3.0, which would have been January 2006.

However, in Jan-06 I had my last month of employment with Comodo. Before =

that Erlend found himself a new job, and so did Oystein. And with my =

departure, all that was left was three fairly fresh Trustix developers: =

Nived, Bipin, and Ajith, in India. As far as I can see, only Nived has =

been working on TSL for the last year or so.

Just to clarify:
Erlend Midttun was THE original developer of TSL.
Oystein Viggen joint the team at a very early stage, I'm guessing =

somewhere at the time of TSL 1.1.
I joined the team in October 2001, just after TSL 1.5 was released in =

August.
After that, a lot of community work was done to make 2.0 a reality. I'm =

totally scared to mention names, as I don't want to forget anyone, and I =

grateful and respectful of these guys. Anyway... you'll find their names =

in the announcement:
http://www.trustix.net/doc/history/2.0-announce.txt

Take a look at the names, and try to find any of them on tsl-discuss the =

last couple of years. You'll find Danny, but not saying anything that =

can be interpreted as positive towards TSL. :)


> But as others mentioned, I had a lot of problems getting trustix 3.0.x =

> working.  And, it's not apparent to me, from this list, that a lot has =

> happened with trustix 3.0 in the last 2 years.  Maybe that's an =

> inaccurate impression, but it's the one I currently have.

There has been updates to 3.0, as there should be. However, 3.0.5 has =

taken a long time. Not to blame Nived. Being only 1 developer on a =

distribution is very challenging.

The main difference between 3.0 and 3.0.5 is the re-introduction of =

Anaconda as the installer, instead of Viper, which was introduced in 3.0.

The main reason for developing Viper was that the Comodo management =

wanted Trustix to differentiate itself from other distributions, in a =

more visible way. No real technical reasons, although we managed to come =

up with a few, to keep the effort interesting for everyone involved. =

People need to rationalize, you know.. ;)

The only reason for reintroducing Anaconda in 3.0.5 was that everyone =

that developed the closed-source Viper installer, was by then fired.

The main problem with TSL is not that it's vulnerable to whatever the =

Comodo management decides, although this is also true. The main problem =

is that it's a distribution developed by one person, with an active =

community of about 15 people, and an ever changing user mass.

We, the original TSL developers, measured the download rate of 2.2 and =

3.0 before we left the sinking ship in late 2005/early 2006. The amazing =

thing about the results was not the great amount of downloads each =

month. The interesting part was WHO downloaded TSL.

What we found was that of the ~3000 ISO downloads each month, about 90% =

never downloaded swup updates. About 95% never downloaded the iso more =

than once. Which mean that either:
1) Only a very small minority of the people that tested TSL actually =

ended up using it.

2) The vast majority of downloaders had their IP address dynamically =

changed via DHCP, hardly the choice of IT professionals.

If you include the stats for the tsl-discuss mailing lists, =

(http://christht.tihlde.org/tsl-discuss-stats-2.txt) you find that the =

activity of the community has gone down from an average of ~400 postings =

each month in late 2003 and early 2004, to an average of ~60 postings =

from late 2006 to present day. That's a significant reduction.

So the only real answer to Ari=EBns question is:
No, almost nobody is still reading tsl-discuss, and yes, the vast =

majority of the community has moved away to other distributions.


Thank you for reading this, and both Ubuntu and CentOS are decent =

alternatives to TSL.

c