:: Re: [DNG] Way forward
Top Page
Delete this message
Reply to this message
Author: Jaromil
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Way forward

Fine. I accept your apologies Dan, but still believe this is not
enough, now we have lost a major contributor and are in need of
finding both sustainability and reliable agency. I am fully committed
to the continued success of this project beyond any personal interest
and believe we need to progress and perhaps extend Devuan so that it
can be both a community effort and also a viable enterprise solution.

Following common understanding with other caretakers and parallel to
the work on the conference documentation, I have started this website,
soon to be linked by Devuan's official domain, served under TLS and
completed with a list of willing partners as datacenterlight, your
company and whoever will like: https://devuan.pro

The reason for this is well described by what Katolaz wrote us in
private and I believe is very important for us to understand:

"""
What will happen if tomorrow you will make a real mistake and tear
down the whole Devuan infrastructure for two weeks? What will happen
if in a week from now anyone makes a mistake building the sysvinit
package and bricks 20K Devuan installations? I will tell you: there
will be somebody who will ask your head to be served on a plate,
because their customers were affected by your mistakes, she/he lost
money, and it's all your fault.
"""

As a consequence of the April's fool it is clear that our NO WARRANTY
license is not enough to protect the voluntary nature of community
contributions. It is also clear that the centralized architecture of
our infrastructure isn't apt for the scale we are achieving. Perhaps
this situation is even a compliment to our efforts since so many
professionals are coming our way escaping systemd's instability and
seeking reliability for their work. And perhaps, rather than being
suffocated by our own success, there is even sustainability behind the
corner, if we manage to accrue resources for community efforts that
are beneficial to all.

In the coming weeks we'll work to define a certification program with
partnering organisations we verify to be capable to offer enterprise
level support for Devuan. This is not to turn Devuan into a company:
to the contrary, is to clearly separate community efforts from
commercial ones and establish a clear relationship between the two. We
will ask senior business developers to help us articulate this offer
in ways that can help improve Devuan's quality for both community and
enterprise uses. So lets now get beyond any futile interpersonal
argument and use our gear to provide for Devuan and those who like to
believe in it.

Besides this immediate solution, I remain devoted to facilitate an
inclusive community development process in the direction of a
distributed infrastructure; but for this we need more people to get
involved: capable people who have time at hand and know how to have
fun developing Devuan, without being treated like unpaid employees who
are held liable for the business of others. Perhaps we will even be
able to pay these people, at least making their life easier doing what
they love.

So this is an invitation to all readers: please consider contributing
to Devuan, having your company adopting it and inviting colleagues to
help. The coming months will be crucial for Devuan and we really
depend on this wonderful community, whose great qualities were well
visible at the conference, to keep up the project.

ciao