gmane.linux.debian.devel.project

Re: Member distributions and popularity

----- "Andreas Tille" <tillea <at> rki.de> wrote:

> I do not think that Ean is talking about Debian Pure Blends because the
> most important feature of a Blend is that it is actually NO derivative.
> (That's why we call them now not CDD any more because this very frequently
> remained unclear for people who just recognised the name.) But what I would
> like to see in connection to Ean's mail is that we try to propagate the
> idea about the advantages a derivative could gain if it would merge back
> into Debian and *become* a Blend (for instance there was a time when
> DeMuDi (Debian Multimedia Distribution) intended to do this but this plan
> was dropped as far as I know).  The profit for both sides would be evident
> in my opinion: Debian will become better multimedia support (to stick to
> the DeMuDi example) and 64studio (offspring of the DeMuDi project) would
> join a team of 1000+x developers to work on the same goal.
> 
> Regarding Ean's original mail: IMHO there is no need to call this an
> "effort" or whatever.  It might have been sufficient if Ean would have
> actually prepared the needed wml code that generates the web page he
> has in mind and fix the menu on www.debian.org to make it easily
> accessible.  There is not much need to talk about this - it would be
> better to announce that it is just implemented.

"Debian Pure Blends" are definitely part of the picture. It would be really great if we promoted Debian Pure
Blends on the "Getting Debian" page. I'm not sure if we want to say that *only* Debian Pure Blends would be
promoted by us. For instance, if Google were to distribute a signed G1 firmware with a real Debian
distribution... how would that be handled?

Debian Pure Blends is very far along the way to what I'm talking about. I've known about CDDs and I've used the
live-helper tools (which are very cool) but I've never had an occasion to read the Debian Pure Blend docs.
We should be more actively promoting these kinds of things off of the main landing pages.

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Jonas Smedegaard | 20 Nov 21:03

Re: Member distributions and popularity

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 11:40:02AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>"Debian Pure Blends" are definitely part of the picture. It would be 
>really great if we promoted Debian Pure Blends on the "Getting Debian" 
>page. I'm not sure if we want to say that *only* Debian Pure Blends 
>would be promoted by us.

Any work improving Blends is directly improving Debian too.

Work improving a derived distro _might_ become beneficial to Debian too. 
Perhaps. If someone does the extra work of bridging the gap.

Therefore I find it bad to promote derivatives - "unpure blends".

>For instance, if Google were to distribute a signed G1 firmware with a 
>real Debian distribution... how would that be handled?

Google would engage directly with Debian to make a Debian Pure blend for 
their needs. And then either sign themselves or - when we get blends 
integrated into the official Debian release routines, complete with 
blend-specific distribution media - make the G1 devices trust images 
signed by Debian.

I suspect, however, that G1 devices would need non-free stuff, which 
means they cannot _not_ use a "real Debian distribution" but need some 
derivative.

>I've never had an occasion to read the Debian Pure Blend docs.

>To your point about not wasting lots of keystrokes...

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Andreas Tille | 21 Nov 08:47

Re: Member distributions and popularity

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Ean Schuessler wrote:

> "Debian Pure Blends" are definitely part of the picture. It would be really great if we promoted Debian
Pure Blends on the "Getting Debian" page.

Sure.

> I'm not sure if we want to say that *only* Debian Pure Blends would be promoted by us.

No definitely not - and I did not said this.  I just wanted to make
a distinction between a Debian Pure Blend which is an internal effort
and those derivatives which by definition can not be a Blend.

> For instance, if Google were to distribute a signed G1 firmware with a real Debian distribution... how
would that be handled?

If it makes this "WITH a real Debian distribution" it is no Blend.  If
DDs / DMs working for Google (yes, there are DDs working for Google)
upload packages to the Debian mirror that enables building a G1 firmware
out of 100% Debian packages it is a Blend and can surely be handled as
such.

But this was not the question.  We can list Blends and those "supportive"
derivatives on our pages as you wanted to suggest.  I just would like to
avoid mixing both things up because there is a slight but important
difference.

> Debian Pure Blends is very far along the way to what I'm talking about. I've known about CDDs and I've used
the live-helper tools (which are very cool) but I've never had an occasion to read the Debian Pure Blend
docs. We should be more actively promoting these kinds of things off of the main landing pages.

(Continue reading)