A couple of months ago I said I'd like to discuss what tools we're using for images.
People suggested that if we're going to do that we needed to have some on-list discussion first. I think we've had a fair bit of on-list discussion including discussion of requirements as well as discussion of specific tools. Therefore I think we're in a good position to discuss image creation tools. I think having some initial discussions about what we want in a stable image *first* and discussing some of how we' want to interact with custom images will be useful before any discussion of image tools. It's possible that the stable image discussion will get to a point where interrupting to discuss image creation tools will help it move faster; it's possible that entire discussion can happen first. It depends on requirements people have and on how uniform we want images to be between providers. I'd be happy to facilitate such a discussion. I do have strong ideas about requirements and usability, but have never been part of the team working on any tool, although I have used several and worked around bugs in the tools I've used. I've also been working on image creation in Debian and other distributed environments since 1992, so I've seen a lot of the tradeoffs. If there's someone better to facilitate the discussion--perhaps someone with fewer ideas about requirements--then I'd be happy to contribute. It's very important to me that we make progress on this topic and I'm happy to do what it takes to make that possible. --Sam
