[Debian-np-devel] Debian-NP and CDD talk in Firenze

[Micah Anderson]

Enrico, 

I really like your answer as well, so much so that I think it belongs
on the NON-developer list for debianNP, so that others can
benefit/discuss it, would you forward it on to there?

In terms of the package debian-np-devel, to include dependencies on
CDD-tools, debpartial-mirror, and our internal documentation is a
great idea! Can we build one soon so it can get into sarge? Perhaps it
makes most sense to make an area in subversion for this?

Micah


On Sat, 25 Sep 2004, Enrico Zini wrote:

> Hello!
> 
> I went yesterday giving a talk at Firenze World Vision
> (www.firenzeworldvision.it) about Custom Debian Distributions and
> Debian-NP.  The slides of my talk are found, as usual, at
> http://people.debian.org/~enrico/talks
> 
> At the end of the talk, Stefano Zacchiroli made me an interesting and
> challenging question:
> 
>   "Is Debian-NP something like a meta distro that can be instantiated to
>    the various different and diverse NP needs?"
> 
> The question struck me.  It was a good question.  It had something
> right, and something that was not it, so I started answering:
> 
>   "Yes, and no."
> 
> But then, damn me, when you answer "yes, and no" then you have to give
> not one, but two answers.  So I said, without thinking:
> 
>   "Yes, in that we already have a meta distro that can be instantiated
>    to the various different and diverse needs of anyone, and that is
>    Debian, and Debian-NP is Debian"
> 
>   "And no, we are not making a distribution to be instantiated: we are
>    more like the ones that instantiate, and teach people how to
>    instantiate"
> 
> Wow!  I had never thought about it in that way!  Very interesting
> answer... I need to talk with that speaker later!  Oh, but it's me...
> Oh, my, I'm sick...
> 
>   "...by the way, thanks for the question, it's been really helpful to
>    me..."
> 
> I really like that answer, and I think it's exactly what we should do:
>  - Real development, we do it with the Debian hat.
>  - With the Debian-NP hat, we forget about being able to write code, and
>    we work with people.
>    
> The most technical things we should do with a Debian-NP hat would be
> select packages, configure them and burn CDs.
> 
> Our work should be make it easier for people to install and maintain
> systems in non profits.  If we start with a CD with the right selection
> of software in it, starting from there is already easier, because you
> spend less time in making selections every time.
> 
> Then, as infrastructure develops, we document it, teach people how to
> burn custom CDs, make starting points, understand the requirements
> better and select different software, and all those things we always
> wanted to do.
> 
> Plus one thing: with the Debian-NP hat, we also have the task of
> representing non-profits and their efforts in the Debian community: we
> are the part of Debian that knows (or is supposed to know) about them.
> 
> How about a package debian-np-devel that depends on CDD tools,
> debpartial-mirror and whatnot, and includes documentation about how we
> evaluated and selected packages, experience reports, best practices, CD
> building howtos, tips on how to indentify your needs, web links,
> contacts of people actively working in building new and interesting
> software, directory of what NGOs did what and how, and how to contact
> them to ask how it goes; gathers bugs and wishes in the BTS (possibly we
> could say "if you don't know where to report your bug, report it to
> debian-np, and we take care of triaging and reassigning it"), and so on?
> 
> 
> Ciao,
> 
> Enrico
> 
> --
> GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org>