Re: The Kernel (fwd)

[Rick Jones <rickya@siservices.net>]

George Bonser wrote:
> 
> Secondly, it is to be a cooperative effort with Debian. Before we make
> changes to something, we first need to know if there is a REASON why
> something was done a certain way rather than discovering (all over again)
> that if you change X it breaks Y.  There might have been some tradeoffs
> that Debian makes that we might not want to.  Our priorities are
> different.

That's right.  SEUL's priorities are different.  That's why Debian
developers input is just that, input.  You come off like if Debian did
it we have to.  That isn't the case.

> useless if it is not being used.  An imperfect but useful package is
> better than a perfect theory.

You're 100% right.  But we have plenty of imperfect packages ou there. 
I seem to remember Omega saying he wanted to take the time to do it the
right way.  Not rush to get *something* out the door as others do.

> So we put out Debian as SEUL 0.1, make some changes to make it better,
> incorporate them and call it 0.2, feed the changes and the reasoning for
> them back into Debian.  Maybe Debian adopts them, maybe they feed US back
> some improvements on our improvements, maybe they point out that we just
> potentially broke something that we did not know about.

That is what I'm asking you about.  What do you intend on changing for
release 0.1?  So far I've only heard you say that 0.1 will be "basically
Debian 2.0". 

> In any case, out 0.2 release SHOULD be better for the end user than 0.1.
> And we increment it from there.  Think of Debian 2.0 as a block of marble
> and we are going to sculpt into SEUL.

I understand the concept.  You can plagerise anything, put a new label
on it and call it your own, but that doesn't make it so.

> The first release of SEUL will be a SEUL-ized version of Debian 2.0 unless
> you can get a SEUL 0.1 full release done within a couple of weeks. Again,
> this is so we can have a baseline, get the UI people working on the UI
> protion, get the kernel people working on the kernel portion, etc.  We are
> going to take a car and rebuild it, we do not, in my opinion, have the
> resources to design and build a car from scratch.

By the same token you can't take a Lincoln, re-paint it and call it a
Geo.

I think you need to write up an outline of changes to Debian that will
make up SEUL 0.1.  I'm not talking about creating SEUL from scratch. 
But I don't think it's right to change all the copywrite info and call
it SEUL.

What changes did you make to that boot floppy from Debians?  All I saw
was the initial screen said SEUL instead of Debian and you probably
recompiled a kernel for it.  If this was the case, what was it you were
testing?  I already know Debians boot disks work, and I already know
this is SEUL.


From what you are saying on the lists, I am already running SEUL 0.1,
only everything says Debian.  That being the case, why should we bother
repackaging it and *then* build on it, instead of building on it *now*?

I'll make it easy for you.  Pretend I'm a user that fits in the upper
end of our target audience.  I'm no dummy whith Windows but have never
used *nix.  I'm shopping for a good distro and run across a post about
SEUL and sub to the project list.  I have a buddy that uses Debian and
advises against it being my first distro.  I'm looking for something
more user friendly and easier to configure.  From the info I've been
able to gleen around the web so far SEUL is going to be a user-friendly
spin-off from Debian.  My buddy says Debian is the best as far as
function so I'm psyched to get SEUL.

I send a post to the list asking about SEUL 0.1.  What are you going to
say?  

Keep in mind that these are also being archived at the web site for just
such users to read without subing to the lists.  What can you say to
make them want to get SEUL 0.1 or even remain interested in following
it?