On 06/04/2015 07:23 AM, KatolaZ wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 11:36:22AM +0100, David Harrison wrote:
>> On 04/06/2015 02:52, dng-request@??? wrote:
>>> If it is the resounding will of the community to absolutely not ship the
>>> default installer with this approach, then I will withdraw from Devuan
>>> and someone else can take over the maintenance of the packages I've been
>>> working on.
>> Daniel, you're doing a great job and I think your proposal is
>> entirely reasonable. Please stay with us.
> Guys, I admit I have seen very good points on both sides (which are
> indeed just two slightly different aspects of the *same* side, that is
> trying to avoid non-free software to proliferate), but I genuinely
> don't undesrstand the "either we all play as I like or I withdraw my
> own toys and go play alone elsewhere" approach :(
>
The choices and the ease of workarounds made here could easily spell the
life or death of this distribution and I for one as a long term simple
Linux "user" thinks it is crucial that it survives long term both as a
distribution in its own right and as a base and inspiration for further
non-systemd offshoots.

Most of us on this list are pretty hardcore Linux users and can
personally, one way or another, work around almost anything thrown at
us, using our own work or the work of others, while this is great, we
should not let it restrict our frame of reference too tightly.

I think while the distribution doesn't necessarily have to target
"newbies" the distro must appeal to enough run of the mill Linux users,
people escaping from claws of systemd in their current choice, to be
more than a niche offering.

State the principles of Free Software up front and the correctness of
that choice, but allow after jumping over a fence, the installation to
be easy enough for an intermediate user to to work through a full
install on modern "store bought" equipment and be able to document the
process for others with lesser skills.

Those who are trying to split the video card away from the network card,
the USB bus, the CPU and memory don't forget that these days that can be
a single interdependent encapsulated mass from a number of major
suppliers world wide, surface mounted or dropped in a socket, with or
without integrated memory. To many the entangled binary blob _IS_ the
computer and that is not going to go away anytime soon.

With all the effort that has gone into this so far it deserves to be a
major distro and it would appear to this guy watching from the fringe
that the necessary brain power is here, but without a noticeably sized
user base it will be seen through the eyes of blogger/journalist
filtered history as the few weirdos who couldn't face the "future of
computing".

Do not forget the bigger picture.

Clarke