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  • From: Vlad Glagolev <stealth AT tiberian.ru>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Future plans on the progress
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:06:12 +0300

+2000 on this one

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:38:09 -0600
Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org> wrote:

> On Jan 29, Ismael Luceno [ismael.luceno AT gmail.com] wrote:
> > On Wed, 28 Jan 2015 17:56:08 -0500
> > Sukneet Basuta <sukneet AT gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 4:34 PM, Ismael Luceno
> > > <ismael.luceno AT gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > We're very far feature-wise from becoming popular. Pre-configuration
> > > > and sane defaults for unattended usage, and binary packages are a
> > > > must.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Not having that stuff is what I like about Source Mage. There are
> > > enough distros out there that offer pre-configuration and 'sane'
> > > defaults. I like that Source Mage has per package build options and
> > > crazy customization. That's a huge factor to it's appeal IMO. If I
> > > wanted binary packages with sane defaults, I'd use a binary distro.
> > <...>
> >
> > It doesn't mean diminishing the customization potential in any way.
> >
> > A lot of software doesn't work right out of the box, or has security
> > issues. We could at least make sure those services don't get enabled by
> > default, provide warnings and instructions, and perhaps configuration
> > examples.
> >
> > None of those would go against our current policies.
>
> Our policy since inception basically has been to promise admins that if
> they install a spell they will get the same thing they would have gotten if
> they'd done 'download; extract; configure; make; make install', unless they
> actively tell us they want something different or it's an FHS change.
>
> This is only partly about "customization potential", it is even more about
> "principle of least surprise". I switched to SMGL predominantly because I
> was sick and tired of spending time debugging system issues only to find
> the problem was some !@%@^& patch some other distro had applied to "fix"
> something that wasn't broken if some packager's assumption wasn't true.
>
> Packages that don't work when run this way have bugs that should be filed
> against upstream. Minimal patches can be applied on our end to fix it, but
> only for very critical things that don't work anywhere and don't make
> assumptions about the state of the system that aren't universal or
> confirmed.
>
> > That said, if we want to appeal anyone besides hobbyists, we should
> > consider what the different user profiles expect, and deliver.
>
> First, the distro appeals just fine to professionals, thanks. SMGL has
> been the distro facilitating at least millions of dollars of credit card
> transactions for some pretty large companies whose names you would
> certainly recognize, some of them "too big to fail".
>
> Really, almost any serious admin who sees it gets it, the problem is just
> adoption where they work if they can't spend the time to get critical mass
> of their colleagues interested. Every project with low name ID has this
> problem and it's never an easy one to fix, it involves a lot of chickens
> and eggs.
>
> Second, the goal of this distro has always been to first meet the needs of
> those that develop it. Finding ways to get the word out to like-minded
> people so they'll join us as developers or users is great, changing what
> we're doing to appeal to people who aren't us is not.
>
>
>
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--
Vlad Glagolev <stealth AT tiberian.ru>

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