Hi all, I've just waded through 250+ posts. I'm a developer and also an active Debian user at work. I work with a bunch of programmers for Windows/Linux/Solaris - I'm their tech. supprort guy, so I get to do some sysadmin. work, building disks, fixing faulty hardware - the works. If I get the choice of Linux, I install Debian - it's on about 7 out of 150 machines now. Another 2 have Red Hat, one has Corel, we've a diehard Slackware user - and so on. Attitudes vary: I've just built an internet machine and a firewall. My boss - an NT programmer - wanted me to only install from a boxed set "silver disks - no gold CD's allowed here" When I tried to reason that the latest "boxed set" was the O'Reilly/VA/SGI set from Sept. 99 and that I'd need to do a huge update to get to reasonably current AND that I'd have to FTP Netscape - he blew up. [Four gold CD's later, I'd saved a 200M download and built two machines in a day.] "What do you mean Netscape isn't free" Debian quality is outstanding - one of our guys installed Corel - root can run Netscape by design regardless of security issues. Debian support is good - another installed Mandrake 6.5 and discovered to his cost that they only support the latest and greatest - he downlaoded mamy MB of software over the net only to discover that it was for version 7.0. Apt won't let you do that. Another insisted I install RedHat because it had a GUI to do the network config. and he couldn't be bothered to spend 1/2 hour learning ifconfig amd manually editing files. All these guys are pragmatic - they just want it to work. Technical excellence doesn't cut ice with them (though one of the Solaris guys said "We use Linux when we can because you can do so much more with it") DFSG / Social Contract concerns don't matter. This is the real world - and it's a world in which Debian excels. I know that Debian main is _Debian_ and that the rest isn't part of the distribution - I've got posts from the last time this was raised when RMS got fairly involved. Contrib / non-US / non-free are all restricted for use in some way. Leaving aside the mention of DFSG-freeness for tne moment - put a bloody big README on the top level of the FTP mirror and on the Web site and its mirrors. "Debian's distribution of GNU Linux is to be found in the subdirectories marked /main. Any other software packaged as .deb format is not to be regarded as forming part of the Debian distribution but is provided as ancillary to that distribution. The packages not in the Debian main distribution may be subject to restrictions on use/licensing or export." or something of that sort. Create a directory called RESTRICTED and branch contrib / non-free / noon-US from under it.It would be nice to implement package pools for woody and to seek cooperation with Corel / Stormix to include their patches/non-free parts in appropriate subdirectories in this structure. It would certainly help people moving from Stormix/Corel to Debian and make it clear to us how these differ from Debian proper. [Stormix admit that their current beta is following potato closely for example - Storm Rain is basically slink with current patches and security fixes applied.] Apropos the "point users at suitable free alternatives" school of thought. If they insist on Netscape / xv they will install it if available. If not they'll dump Debian. Non-free will wither on the vine - eventually - but its use now is a means to an end. Now can we release potato please - I need a packaged boxed set to please my bosses. Although the test cycle one silver CD's are a start, they won't be happy until I can put in a purchase order to an "Official Debian" supplier. Thanks for all, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
