Re: SEUL: Is there a user for S.E.U.L.?

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

   From: Micah Yoder <yoderm@geocities.com>
   X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; Linux 2.0.27 i486)

   Jay Bloodworth wrote:

   > think we need to focus on making SEUL appealing to the first group -
   > organization IS managers - because if we can sell enough organizations on
   > Linux, computer manufacturers will start selling preinstalled Linux
   > systems.

   I believe we need to focus on BOTH big IS departments AND home users. 
   There's a project going on to make a gaming API, and if they succeed
   (hopefully before SEUL is released), Linux could be a very good gaming
   platform.  And we know that's what attracts a lot of home users.  :-)

We have to think in three kinds of computers: servers, workstations
and home users.

RedHat is pretty easy to set up in a LAN and when you reboot after
installing you see than there are a lot of servers running out of the
box.  Its biggest failure is than is does not provide a tool for easy
setup of NFS and SAMBA.  And notice than there is another project for
improving easiness of networking in LINUX so I think NFS and SAMBA are
more in their area (if someone is on both groups it would be a good
thing if he could tell us what is their position towards NFS and
SAMBA.

Workstations require tools for the activity of the person using it
(programming tools, CAD packages...) but also tools for coordinating
with coworkers like a tool to plan meetings and so synchronizing
participants agendas.

Home users need a different set of application software, examples are
games and tools for graphic creativity.  The biggest failure is than
they don't try to provide the home user with tools or pre-made config
files for the home useer peculiar networking needs.  And if you are
unable to send mail and news you will unable to get help.  Or you
reboot under Windows and then try to remember what was the error
message.  I see the later too often.


   > network file systems as well as networkable menu management, ie you add
   > app xyz to the server and it shows up on the appropriate users menu's next
   > time they reboot.

   YES!!!  We could blow Windows away with that one!  And have a good set
   of user-control options.  My company has a large mill client who spent a
   LOT of money keeping their users out of games using DOS/Win3.1.  They
   finally upgraded (in terms of Windows, 3.1->NT is an upgrade) to NT,
   which helped, but they are still using the 16 bit office.  I had to come
   up with a way to hack the DLLs to disable the VBA commands that could
   potentially launch games!  If we could make this easy, IS people will
   love us!  :-)

RedHat and LST have that already (window managers building their menus
on the basis of available software), if your /usr is a shared disk
then every time you add something in the server it will be visible by
users next time they restart their WMs.  And someone have written a
daemon who will upgrade packages box each time it detects a new
version in the server.

   > be able to contribute to remedying these deficiencies as our talents and
   > interests allow, I don't think that really falls under the scope of SEUL.

   Actually in a way I think improving/creating apps *does* directly apply
   to SEUL.  If the "end user" apps aren't there, why have an end user OS?

   *We* should probably focus on the OS and getting a collection of apps
   together, and possibly recruit for projects to create apps.

We have to be realistic we are not enough for developping major
software.  But we can try to make a better selction between existing
software and provide tools for the areas the existing distributions
fall short.  If SEUL attracts non-geeks to LINUX then sooner or later
there will be application software targeted for them.

   The one thing Linux *really* needs is a good visual programming tool.  I
   use Visual Basic at work (not by choice), and though there are several
   drawbacks to it, I must admit it is incredibly easy to develop certain
   kinds of apps quickly, especially data access.

There a few GUI builders for LINUX targeting TCL/Tk, XForms or Qt.
Also look at commercial VB clones available for LINUX like VBIX.

   I think we should try to start a project to develop some kind of RAD
   tool for Linux - hopefully more like Delphi than VB!

That is a MAJOR project.  Impossible until this list gets as many
active participants than Linux-kernel.  And our goal is not easiing
the task of programmers but make LINUX easy enough for people who are
presently unable to cope with it.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

==================== The Linux.  Use the Linux, Luke! =======================

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