[Opencd-devel] More Thoughs

[Daniel M. <ma...@CS...>]

I think this project is a neat idea, but I can see that a lot of people on
the list have a lot of different ideas about what it should be.  I've seen
people discuss PHP and Perl, cygwin and Apache, etc.  Although I understand
people's enthusiasm for introducing others to a new way of computing, I
think that it too great a goal to accomplish in one move, and that
attempting to do so will cause this project to fail.  It is not enough to
just create a CD, we need to create a CD that people (hopefully lots of
them) will use, and will expose them to a new kind of software that does not
take away their rights.

I'll just list my ideas and some justification on why they make sense
compared to the alternatives.

This disk should target only Windows home or end users.  This means it
should only have (GUI) applications (OpenOffice, Mozilla, Gimp, etc.),
games, etc.

This means:
    1) We should not include command line unix tools, this will only confuse
and scare users, and there is really nothing about them to do with open
source anyway.
    2) We should not include any servers (Apache, etc.) or IT administration
tools.  These people already know of the existence of open source
alternatives, and there are already many CD's on the market with versions of
these tools that cost enough for companies to "take them seriously".
    3) We should not include compilers and other development tools.  Very
few people write their own software: professionals evaluate tools carefully
when making a decision, and cannot suddenly switch from VC to gcc in the
middle of a project; amateur are computer savvy enough to about know the
existence of these tools and how to find them.

For code under the GPL, its not enough (well, I don't think so, ask a
lawyer) to provide a link to someone else who hosts the code.  We should
just tar it all up and host in on our website.  We do not need to provide
the tools to untar and then build the source (but maybe just a little page
pointing people where to get the tools and how to build the code if they
want).

Ok, those were my thoughts.  I think this project will only succeed if
people begin to form a consensus as to what they are trying to accomplish.

Dan