Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: [Opencd-devel] Source

[Robert I. S. <ro...@wa...>]

>
>Ok, I think we're nearing agreement on this point.
>
>We seem to agree that the source should _not_ be on the main CD for
>several good reasons.  The remaining disagrement is a minor one.  I see
>3 options:
>
>1)  We simply link places where the source can be obtained, from the CD
>and from our web page
>
>2)  We store the source at our own web site in individual zip files, one
>for each app, and link to these.
>
>3)  We can do 1., 2. and make an ISO with these source files, so that
>people can burn it and distribute it easily.
>
>All of these meet the Licence requirements (I think), but if we chose
>only #1, we might be seen as not pulling our weight, by telling people
>to use the bandwith of the devel teams to get the source.
>
>- Henrik


Hi everyone,

This is my first message. I will introduce my self in a separate message to 
this list.

I think we should go for option 1. And make sure the links to the source 
are well hidden from a casual user. Anyone looking for the source will 
probably know where to find it. Source, instructions for compilation and a 
lot of  the developer websites will scare people off. They don't care about 
the +0.001(a-z) upgrade of a given application. They don't want to know 
about the source of all evil (pun intended). They don't care that new 
features are included in a nightly build. If there is a good reason for 
power users to daily/weekly install a new build, the application is not 
ready for prime time. I personally only install the milestone releases of 
Mozilla. I waited for OpenOffice to hit 1.0 etc.

Storing sources on the website will make maintaining it a bitch. It only 
has real value if the sources are up to date (latest releases included, not 
only the ones which currently carry our seal of approval). This takes a lot 
of effort for instance in the case of Mozilla. Maybe with a lot of hard 
work we can have a good repository of source. But think about it. What 
happens if the site gets listed on Slashdot the first day an Openoffice or 
Mozilla milestone sees the light of day. How many potential users from our 
target audience will get a Host Not Reachable on that day and go to 
download.com and go for demo-, free- or shareware or just stick to what 
they already have.

We should of course pay respect to the opensource initiative and the 
developers. I think we should include some well-worded advocacy pieces. It 
shouldn't get in the way of users who are not interested. And most 
importantly it should not bash Microsoft, AOL or anything else or try to 
prove superiority. But this is another discussion.

The source-ISO has some benefits for the bandwidth-impaired. However trying 
to tackle that issue is aiming to high. We should be focused on one thing 
and one thing only. Change the world one step at a time and so on.

Bob