Re: Indy makes the big leagues

[JF Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

> From: Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>
> Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:08:33 -0400 (EDT)
> Content-Type: text
> Sender: owner-independence-l@independence.seul.org
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> 
> Specifically, 
> http://linuxjournal.com:8080/lj-issues/distable.html
> nice. :)
> 
> I'm going to drop a line to cheapbytes in the next few days, and
> see what they think about distributing copies of Indy in a more...
> mass-media fashion. I will suggest a $2 version, like the $2
> redhat cd's. Our goal is to get the product to the masses, not
> to make any money off it.

Well part of the goal of this release is a propagandistic one.  I ssee
two problems in present distributions: at times it seems like if they
didn't care about "normal" users and also they allow their thinking be
restricted by Unix thinking.  That is why one of Indy's goals is to be
an _user's_ distribution and another one is starting a Linux specific
culture because the Linux user is different from the Unix user and he
needs Linux, not Unix, solutions.  Said shortly Indy is a rebellion
both of user's against "aristocracy" and the status of "Linux being
just a colony of Unix".

For a little example of how Unix thinking hampers Linux disrtributions
try printing to an SMB printer.  In most organizations this will be
agonizingly slow.  The reason is because the printer driver is trying
to locate the printer using DNS like if it were a classic Unix printer
server while in many organizations an SMB printer server whose primary
clients will be Windows boxes will not even have a DNS name and will
be locatable only through Wins or broadcast methods.  Adapting to a
situation where the Linux is box is only a client and high ranking
people don't have given orders for the entire organization adapting to
the Linux client is something Unix people seem unable to figure.  So
they use the wrong method for name solving.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org