[DotGNU]Re: Fitzix Free Software Audit project and some .GNU notes.

[Matthew Copeland]

Just a thought beyond what Richard wrote about making use of the FSF's
Free Software directory, which by the way is coming along very nicely and
has helped me more than once, you might want to consider the fact that the
type of auditing that you are talking about occurs somewhat already within
Debian, which is currently (as far as I know) considered the main stay for
creating GNU distributions.  It also has work being done on it for making
it work with the Hurd, and is the distro that the Hurd developers use.  I
don't want to discourage the work, but I do want to point out that the
duplication of effort is not necessarily a good use of our time.  We would
be better off at working with other projects and helping them to be molded
in better ways. 

        For instance, did anyone notice that as soon as the Ximian
announcement came out, we saw it posted here?  (a good thing)  Did
everyone also notice that no one made the comment that we should approach
them about working together?  (a bad thing, in my opinion)  Remember,
Miguel is a member of the board on the FSF.  (At least, I think I remember
reading that somewhere.)  He might be very interested in working together
to create something that is better.  So what are you thoughts on this, and
does anyone know Miguel or some other Ximian people that we might be able
to approach with this idea?

Matthew M. Copeland



On Fri, 6 Jul 2001, Barry Fitzgerald wrote:

> 
> Hello Everyone,
> 
>       I'm sending this to both the dotgnu developers list and to
> FreeDevelopers because I feel that this project may have implications for
> both Free Developers and dotgnu.  First, a little history.  A year or so
> ago, I was contemplating the concept of GNU/Linux fragmentation.  Of
> course, the first thing that went through my head was "Nah - the GPL will 
> protect
> us!"  Over time, I began to wonder about the complexities of this.  Yes,
> the GPL will protect us, but it's not automatic.  And, although the
> distributions may have different interfaces, they are not fragmented
> per-se.  That per-se part started to bug me a little bit.  Now, I'm not
> raising the ghost of fragmentation since the concept is very specific and
> also somewhat complex concerning the actions of forked projects and their
> development in closed, open source, and free software projects are all
> entirely different.  But, that's the point.  Projects will fork, and other
> projects won't fork and that's OK.  But, to the end user, the whole thing
> can seem very confusing.
> 
>       At this point you're probably asking yourself "Where's Barry going
> with this???"  Well, at the time I was not as wise about the situation as
> I am now.  I decided to go on a learning project adn develop a GNU/Linux
> system from scratch.  I first used the "linuxfromscratch" method which is
> very good, then I set out to build a strict GNU system starting with the
> Linux kernel and moving backwards.  The idea was to find out how the
> system worked from the ground up, and then try to create compatibility
> layers for each distribution.  Ostensibly, you could make a Red Hat box
> look like a debian box, or vice versa.  Now, obviously this is a complex
> project.  It's a very large, very slow project.  I've been working on it
> on and off.  In the midst, I've been working on finishing school at UConn
> for my BA in sociology (All of my computer knowledge is homegrown over the
> past 7 years) and working amidst other things.  So, I waited to go public
> until I had more time.
> 
>       I was going to wait a little longer (I'll be done with College at
> the end of the summer) but after hearing about dotgnu and then reading
> some comments from David Sugar (Welcome aboard, btw) I've decided to go
> forward with this posting.  In particular, I noticed David mention the
> Free Software directory.
> 
>       To attain my goal, I realised that I needed something more than
> just work on the distribution layers.  I needed to create a Free Software
> auditing project.  This project would exist to audit packages according to
> many different attributes.  As a sub-goal, the project would then build a
> GNU OS distribution based on the linux kernel and hurd.  The project could
> audit software issues and act as a sounding board concerning packages.
> This Free Software audit/directory could act as a one-stop shopping area
> for information concerning any GNU OS package.  The project could also
> intercede and create patches for projects which fit the needs of other
> projects.  For example, if fileutils needs a patch to deal with changes in
> the glibc (something I experienced, If I recall correctly), then the
> project can document the problem, create the patch, then send it to the
> original developers/post it online.  For this to work, the auditing
> project has to become a source of knowledge for the entire free software
> development community.
> 
>       How does this pertain to us?
> 
>       I can think of no better project for freedevelopers.net and this
> project would ostensibly meet the need for a free software directory.
> 
>       As far as dotgnu is concerned, issues concerning adaptation to
> other distributions and development concerns can be funneled/maintained
> into/by the audit project.  In otherwords, an extension to the package
> audit project can be a distribution auditing project, charting package
> availability in distributions.  Using this, we can determine the
> likelyhood of problems concerning adding the patches to different
> distributions.
> 
>       OK, I think I've mindlessly typed for long enough.  If you made it
> this far, please comment.  All comments are welcome including "You IDIOT!"
> style comments. :)  Thank you.
> 
> Barry Fitzgerald
> address@hidden
> SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
> 
> ==^================================================================
> EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?b1dh5g.b2nMgX
> Or send an email To: address@hidden
> This email was sent to: address@hidden
> 
> T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
> http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
> ==^================================================================
> 
>