I think quidam's points are all good. I'm just going to emphasise the
resources issue and a few ways in which we might find solutions to these
issues. I think one of the things Ubuntu has shown works well is the three
year release cycle.
While I know a lot of people would abandon Trisquel over the elimination of
short term releases I think it is more important to have a usable
distribution than a distribution with the latest and "greatest" software.
Right now quidam has about six months to get out each short term release and
then that is supported for around a year (Canonical provides security updates
for 1 1/2 years after each short term release).
In comparison the long term releases are supported (get security updates from
Canonical) for 3 years. If quidam had more time to focus on improving the
long term releases we would have a better distribution. quidam could in
theory take about a year to release the next distribution after Canonical has
released the last Ubuntu long term version.
The main problem that I believe is created with this idea is that of drivers.
I think this could be solved quite easily by back porting critical drivers
and kernels to the LTS releases.
This would give you the best of both worlds. Stability, security, and support
for more recent hardware.
--
What other ideas could solve this problem? Better utilisation of current
resources. Volunteers for the dirty jobs. People want to hear from quidam
about Trisquel. quidam's time travelling is likely to increase as Trisquel
gets more popular. Maybe this problem could be solved by replacing him with a
spokesperson. This might be someone whose role is important although whose
not necessarily hacking on the distribution to the same degree as quidam. The
essential role might be 'architect' Trisquel. This might simply be someone
who reviews what other distributions are doing (what components are they
using, etc), draws up a design (what components? what features should go into
Trisquel 6?), and manages bug reports. Narrowing down the critical components
that should go into the next release, making sure we retain critical
features, and finding solutions for bug reports for which quidam and/or then
implement or filing those bug reports upstream with the solutions. And again.
What about managing the web site?
quidam shouldn't be managing the web site. I am guessing here the problem
quidam has is he doesn't want to risk down time due to an inexperienced
hacker mucking things up.
I think there is a simple solution to security and down time. Lets simply
separate concerns. Lets put the bug tracker/forums/wiki and mail into
separate virtual instances (assuming the site doesn't get that much peak
traffic). I'm guessing here although two instances would probably be enough.
There are some good reliable tools which exist and I'm betting we aren't
using them.
By being able to pull up copies of different instances you can easily
mitigate some of the risks which are created by delegating responsibilities.
The mistakes can be more easily recovered from and down time reduced.
Trisquel and ThinkPenguin are both using Drupal for platform management. The
systems are very similar so I'm pretty confident this would work well for
Trisquel.
I think we have been down for all of maybe two days in a 3-4 year time span
and this includes when we transitioned from Drupal 5 to 6. We have redundant
daily off site backups of critical pieces (web site) and monthly (roughly)
offline copies. All regularly tested and working.
I'll also add if any one here is looking for work we need someone to help
with internationalising Ubertcart (primarily). We currently are on Drupal 6.
--
There are also lots of other things which would help increase Trisquel's
budget. We need more marketing exposure. Someone with Spanish language skills
to help with marketing would be a good start. The more money coming into
ThinkPenguin the more we can contribute to free software projects. Right now
we are working on some things to help with this although... it's a slow
process. Just like with how quidam is overworked the other projects/companies
we are working with are too. Creating marketing material, writing press
releases, and similar activities should not be done by quidam or other
technical individuals. These individuals could be better utilised if there
were more people to focus on non-core activities.
