On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Ashwin Dixit <[email protected]> wrote:
> Why not choose FreeBSD for that matter? You can. As long as you can get application vendors to certify against FreeBSD with the release cycle cadence. > 1. Fragmented package managers: There are too many different package > managers and package formats. e.g., rpm and pkg > Choosing one distribution eliminates that confusion. Or, it locks you down to a choice you made attempting to solve the problems in *now* timespace. > 2. Application compatibility: We want to catalyze the application > ecosystem. We want applications to run everywhere without hassle. > The national distribution will help that goal. Again, it will not. Application vendors want to limit the lines of distributions they certify against. Certification is expensive, time-consuming. Adding a new distribution/line-item is frowned upon. Both large and small ISVs provide archives, debs and rpms of the package. Some bundle in their own installer. > 3. Domestic security audit: The whole point of creating the national distro > is so that Indian programmers can vet the Ubuntu source-code for > vulnerabilities. > It's not that we don't trust the international community. Pragmatically > speaking, domestic due diligence is necessary with any technologies we > adopt. To undertake a domestic security audit you will first require a domestic security guide. Once you have that guide - it is a matter of interest for distributions to comply with it. > 4. Scope for future internationalization of applications. I want to see > applications internationalized and reused in China, and India, and > elsewhere. > If we're all using Ubuntu, and following the same I18N practices, this goal > is achievable. i18n and l10n works best when it is upstream. If you create a silo, what you get is what happened with BOSSLinux - a very fine, well funded private garden of contributions. > 5. Reduce government waste: The government, trying to create indirect > incentives for adoption of OSS will make a bureaucratic mess of things. > Having an unambiguous standard, codified in the form of the national > distribution, may be the more efficient way. A standard/guide/policy is not equivalent to a national distribution. > Hence, I conclude: "One distribution to bind them all!" Hmm... -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay <https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan> _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
