Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [semi-OffTopic] UserLinux

[Andrew Suffield]

On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 04:59:17PM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:
> At the moment, this is just a (shared) thought experiment.
> 
> I invite people to read Bruce Perens'  "UserLinux: Repairing the Economic
> Paradigm of Enterprise Linux" (http://userlinux.com/white_paper.html).
> 
> There's some things I like about the proposal, and some things I
> don't.
> 
> I don't want to prejudice your consideration of the proposal _much_,
> but I will seed discussion (if there will be any) with two
> observations:
> 
> ~ the proposal is rather anemic on consideration of engineering
>   process -- aside from "including debian by reference", it mostly
>   talks about products, not process.
> 
> ~ as an _economic_paradigm_ essay, it's considerate of consumers,
>   but silent on labor issues.

I think you've missed the point entirely. UserLinux (ironic name) is
about doing all the stuff that's only needed at enterprise level. It's
not about "engineering".

Doubtless some actual development work will be necessary, but taking
Debian as a base and targetting the goals in the white paper, you're
looking at two or three people doing a few weeks work initially, and
then just ongoing maintainance. Not a big deal.

The UserLinux effort is primarily about all the *other* stuff that you
need to make a successful enterprise product. Marketing, training,
certification, support, distribution infrastructure, etc.

It is fairly certain that most of the technical stuff will still be
done by the people who have always done it.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
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