On Jul 27, 2010, at 9:09 AM, Dan McGhee wrote: > I have "lurked" on this list for years. I've seen the questions about > and requests (demands [?] ) for a liveCD. I agree completely with your > assessment. If, and that might be a very big "if," a discussion > generates, I think that one of the topics should be an assessment of the > "...number of people [who] like and find [it] useful..." compared to the > difficulty of development and maintenance. The conclusion here may > obviate the need for a discussion of your other quite relevant topics.
Yes, and this is something I'm finding hard to measure. There are likely more people that use the CD and find it useful than are subscribed to or reading this list. That's something that Matthias touched on (who, speaking of, I have no idea how to respond to). > Doesn't this, in large part, depend on the purpose of the project? I > think I remember a day when a person could down load something, hit the > "go" button and return some time later and see a new, shiny liveCD.iso. > There's also what's available now, or at least the last time I > downloaded the liveCD, which has LFS-6.5 on it. If I'm not mistaken, > that's just a remastered 6.3, with the 6.5 "stuff" on it. Also, if > memory serves me, it's got a 64-bit capability to it. I think that > developing specificity in "purpose" is obvious from analyzing the ranges > in possibilities in these two data points.' Yes, exactly. I tried early on in this projects life to define a purpose, but then I vacillated over time and I think some of its purpose wandered. In the end, I think this frustrated Alexander somewhat and his efforts to produce a usable CD. I think the purpose needs to be made clear and kept clear - at the same time, I'm not sure I alone am the best person to decide what that is. > I remember reading Alexander's comments a few years ago. I've seen a > number of "I like it and I will help" remarks on this list. I don't know > if there was any follow up to those offers, whether they were empty > offers or whether the talents offered weren't "up to snuff" for the > nebulous purpose of the project. Even if some people were rebuffed or > ignored, I agree with this. I have no idea how many it takes to produce > something like this, but I have a real hunch that 1-3 people would be > seriously overloaded. And that's the problem. The infrastructure for the project doesn't allow for easy contribution, mostly because commit access has always required system accounts and it takes a while to build up trust enough to hand those out. I would like for a free-er way of contributing and encouraging contributions. So maybe the infrastructure changing would help that - see the recent discussion on the lfs-dev list about community.linuxfromscratch.org. > Unfortunately, I believe that this is a reality. But isn't it also true > that the project is shutdown now? I don't know what it means to have an > operating project, but, if I'm not mistaken, only the formal framework > of the liveCD project exists. Yes, certainly it is currently dead and shutdown in the sense that there's no consistent work or communication about it. I did a bunch of work recently to bring the build scripts up to date with stable LFS, but it's not enough yet to really call the project 'alive' or 'active'. It was never formally shut down, however, and that's part of why this discussion is taking place. > Jeremy, I think this all hinges on how many people enter the discussion > and want to participate--at any level. Would you feel comfortable > setting a deadline for the beginning of a discussion, although one may > have already started with input from two, not counting your original > message, and determining a minimum number of participants in the project > to maintain it. If you do and you publish them and if neither condition > gets satisfied, then I think it appropriate to do whatever you have to do. I agree with this thought. On the other hand, I'm finding it very difficult to decide what a fair margin is here. And it's difficult to determine what sort of labor is needed if the purpose and/or build methodology is up in the air. > Thank you for bringing this up. And thank you for contributing your thoughts! Let's keep this discussion moving so we can figure this out. Opinions are more than welcome. Regards, Jeremy -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/livecd FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
