[indiana-discuss] Indiana is the wrong development

[Gueven Bay]

Hello dear community,

In my opinion Indiana is the wrong direction of development. All those "easy
distributions" - with which I mean also the "easy distros" of GNU/Linux but I will
concentrate here on Solaris-land - will not get to the goal of secure, stable
infrastructures and services.
I want to describe the reasons here.

The original Solaris infrastructures had always the reputation of stability,
security and reliability. This was not because of bullshitbingo or marketing
material but because of the knowing, qualified users.

What are knowing, qualified users? For an enduser we can say, that he knows
and understands his system from an eagle view. That there is a console, that there
is a shell, a display manager, an X server and so on. Even if he doesn't understands
how they are working, he understands that there is a pile of services and their respective
configuration (files) which he can start and stop and that there is help in form of
docu. Because of this he can "form" his (virtual) workplace and can run it in
stable manner.

Such users - which include admins and developers who are knowing users which
specialised further - built the reputation of stable, secure and reliable Solaris
infrastructures.

But the "easy distros" are going to the wrong direction : They want to tell the user
that the complex machine under his table is as easy as a video recorder - or maybe
as easy as a toaster -.
This is wrong in two ways:
1) The "easy distros" are building a false assumption. A PC is much more complex then
a video recorder.
2) From this false assumption the users of these "easy distros" become more and more
lazy.

Above I wrote that in my critic I also see the "easy distros" of GNU/Linux. Please,
go to the forums of these distros and read the questions of their users. In the last
consequence these users want to do lesser and lesser work, they want that their live CD
boots, reads their minds and automagically start the music files they want to listen now.
But no distro, no software, no network/infrastructure can meet these requirements, no
PC can be so easy to use. 

I don't want such a development for (Open)Solaris - not for the original version and
not for the free software version -.

There is one development in the internet today and that is "unsecurity". More and more
threats from more and more classes of programs target the users of most classes
of computer systems. But there is still a group of users who can still laugh about these
threats: The users of Unix-like operating systems. They can laugh because they are knowing
and qualified users.
The group of the most lazy users - the users of the operating system with the biggest
market share - had stopped laughing a long time ago. Soon the next lesser lazy user group
- the users of an operating system for media professionals - will stop laughing.
I want that the OpenSolaris uses can still laugh in 5 years.


OpenSolaris started as a sourcebased distro because in fact in the beginning of a
free software career there should be the source. This fact now we can use to grow
knowing and qualified users from the beginning.

OpenSolaris needs now these knowing users because it is in the beginng of its FreeSW
career where much testing and discussions and development is needed.

For this development of knowing users Indiana should be an infrastructure
consisting of:
A) A website tour of several webpages where every page explains the function of a
specific consolidation and where the user gets a link/button/whatever to download
this specific consolidation until the user knows the function of every consolidation and
has everyone of them on his harddisk.
B) A script or a program - it is important that this can run on the minimal Solaris system
- which again explains the consolidation then unpacks it then build the binaries/docus and
so on whereby every step of the building process is explained.
C) A Belenix distro without all the bling-bling which:
1) starts a minimal environment
2) explains (in the /etc/issue or something like that) how the user can slice/partition his
disk to make a free workplace
3) Links to the above mentioned website tour.
4) Wished luck and fun for building the own OpenSolaris.
5) And at last starts the interactive training and build script.

This is a good way to build knowing and qualified users who will thank you by operating
high quality infrastructures - may it be a home network, may it be a scientific network -
and good contributions in the community for the future development of OpenSolaris.
And this will support the good reputation of Solaris networks. Is there a better way of
marketing?

(I know that the infrastructure above has many points to make finer and more polished but
it has the full skeleton I think to build upon.)



best regards
Gueven
__________________________________________________________________________
Erweitern Sie FreeMail zu einem noch leistungsstärkeren E-Mail-Postfach!		
Mehr Infos unter http://produkte.web.de/club/?mc=021131