[Blends-commit] [SCM] blends-gsoc branch, master, updated. 28e2fba86f5538e7ae12e30260646add979541a1
Emmanouil Kiagias
e.kiagias at gmail.com
Thu Sep 19 21:38:59 UTC 2013
The following commit has been merged in the master branch:
commit 28e2fba86f5538e7ae12e30260646add979541a1
Author: Emmanouil Kiagias <e.kiagias at gmail.com>
Date: Thu Sep 19 23:38:10 2013 +0200
added doc/en/05_inside.xml converted documentation. Remember to commet out xref in line 221 once I convert the rest of the documentation
diff --git a/doc/debian-blends.en.xml b/doc/debian-blends.en.xml
index 9be2075..9512602 100644
--- a/doc/debian-blends.en.xml
+++ b/doc/debian-blends.en.xml
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
<!ENTITY ch-about SYSTEM "en/02_about.xml">
<!ENTITY ch-general-ideas SYSTEM "en/03_general_ideas.xml">
<!ENTITY ch-existing-blends SYSTEM "en/04_existing_blends.xml">
+ <!ENTITY ch-inside SYSTEM "en/05_inside.xml">
]>
@@ -19,5 +20,6 @@
&ch-about;
&ch-general-ideas;
&ch-existing-blends;
+ &ch-inside;
</book>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/doc/en/05_inside.xml b/doc/en/05_inside.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b46e984
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/en/05_inside.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,286 @@
+<chapter id="inside">
+ <title>Distributions inside Debian</title>
+
+ <sect1 id="fork">
+ <title>To fork or not to fork</title>
+
+<para>
+There are many distributions that decided to fork from a certain
+state of Debian. This is perfectly all right because Debian is
+completely free and everybody is allowed to do this. People who
+built those derived distributions had certain reasons to proceed
+this way.
+</para>
+
+ <sect2 id="commercialfork">
+ <title>Commercial forks</title>
+
+<para>
+If Debian should be used as the base for a commercial distribution
+like
+ <ulink url="http://www.linspire.com/">Linspire</ulink> (formerly Lindows),
+ <ulink url="http://www.libranet.com/">Libranet</ulink> or
+ <ulink url="http://www.xandros.com/">Xandros</ulink>, there is no other
+choice than forking because these companies normally add some stuff
+that is non-free. While Debian Pure Blends might be interesting in
+technical terms for those commercial distributions by making it easier
+to build a separate distribution, these non-free additions are not
+allowed to be integrated into Debian, and thus integration into Debian
+is impossible.
+</para>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2 id="noncommercialfork">
+ <title>Non-commercial forks</title>
+
+<para>
+As a completely free distribution Debian GNU/Linux is quite often a
+welcome starting point for derived distributions with a certain
+purpose that are as free as Debian but had certain reasons to fork.
+One main reason for a fork was that Debian was not flexible enough for
+certain purposes and some needed features had to be added. One reason
+for the Debian Pure Blends effort is to increase flexibility and to
+make the reason mentioned above void (if it is not yet void because of
+the general develoment of Debian). Some examples of forks from Debian
+that are probably now able to integrate back into Debian as a Debian
+Pure Blend are:
+
+<variablelist>
+
+<varlistentry>
+ <term><ulink url="http://www.skolelinux.org">SkoleLinux</ulink></term>
+ <listitem><para>Mentioning SkoleLinux in the category of forks is more or less
+ history. The merge back into Debian started with the
+ SkoleLinux people really doing a great job to enhance Debian
+ for their own purposes in the form of their work on
+ debian-installer, and culminated with the formal merging of
+ the Blend Debian Edu and SkoleLinux, so that they are now
+ virtually equivalent. This is the recommended way for derived
+ distributions, and the reasons for this recommendation are
+ given below.</para>
+ </listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+
+<varlistentry>
+ <term>DeMuDi</term>
+ <listitem><para>The <ulink url="http://www.agnula.org/">Agnula</ulink> project, which is founded by the
+ European Community, (and in fact is the first Free Software project
+ that was founded by the EU at all,) forked for the
+ following reasons:</para>
+
+ <variablelist>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Technical</term>
+ <listitem><para>They had some special requirements for the kernel and
+ configuration. This is more or less solved in the
+ upcoming Debian release.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>License</term>
+ <listitem><para>When DeMuDi started, not enough free programs in this
+ field existed. This situation is better now.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Organisational</term>
+ <listitem><para>Because of the founded status of the project, an extra
+ distribution had to be developed. To accomplish this
+ requirement, Debian Pure Blends plan to build common tools to
+ facilitate building separate CDs with the contents of only a
+ single distribution.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ </variablelist>
+
+ <para>
+ This shows that there is no longer a real need for a fork, and
+ in fact, the organiser of the DeMuDi project was in contact to
+ start bringing DeMuDi back into Debian. That is why DeMuDi is
+ mentioned in the list of Debian Pure Blends above.
+ Unfortunately the effort to merge back has stalled but it
+ might be an interesting project to apply Blends techniques to
+ support multimedia experts who want to use Debian.</para>
+ </listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+
+<varlistentry>
+ <term>LinEx</term>
+ <listitem><para>LinEx is the very successful distribution for schools in the
+ Region Extremadura in Spain. The work of the LinEx people
+ perhaps made Debian more popular than any other distribution.
+ The project was founded by the local government of
+ Extremadura, and each school in this region is running this
+ distribution. While this is a great success, the further
+ development of LinEx has to face the problems that will be
+ explained below. Because the creators of LinEx are aware of
+ this fact they started joining the educational part of LinEx
+ with Debian Edu which in turn leaded to an even stronger
+ position of this Blend.</para>
+ </listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+
+</variablelist>
+
+</para>
+
+<para>
+If developers of a non-commercial fork consider integrating back into
+Debian in the form of a Debian Pure Blend, it might happen that their
+field is covered already by an existing Blend. For instance, this
+would be the case for LinEx, which has the same group of target users
+as Debian Edu as explained above. On the other hand, some special
+adaptations might be necessary to fit the requirements of the local
+educational system. The specific changes that might be necessary
+would be called <emphasis>flavours</emphasis> of a Blend.
+</para>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2 id="disadvantages">
+ <title>Disadvantages of separate distribution</title>
+
+<para>
+In general, a separate distribution costs extra effort. Because it is
+hardly possible to hire enough developers who can double the great
+work of many volunteer Debian developers, this would be a bad idea for
+economical reasons. These people would have to deal with continuous
+changes to keep the base system, installer, etc. up to date with the
+current Debian development. It would be more sane to send patches that
+address their special requirements to Debian instead of
+maintaining a complete Debian tree containing these patches.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Debian is well known for its strong focus on security. Security is
+mainly based on manpower and knowledge. So the best way to deal with
+security issues would be to base it on the Debian infrastructure,
+instead of inventing something new.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+New projects with special intentions often have trouble to become
+popular to the user group they want to address. This is a matter of
+attaining the critical mass that was explained in <xref linkend="general_problem"/>.
+</para>
+<para>
+Larger Free Software projects need certain infrastructure like
+web servers, ftp servers, (both with mirrors,) a bug tracking system,
+etc. It takes a fair amount of extra effort to build an entire infrastructure
+that is already available for free in Debian.
+</para>
+<para>
+<emphasis>Forking would be a bad idea.</emphasis>
+</para>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2 id="advantages">
+ <title>Advantages of integration into Debian</title>
+
+<para>
+Debian has a huge user base all over the world. Any project that is
+integrated within Debian has a good chance to become popular on the back
+of Debian if the target users of the project just notice that it
+enables them to solve their problems. So there is no
+need for extra research on the side of the users, and no need for
+advertising for a special distribution. This fact has been
+observed in the Debian Med project, which is well known for many
+people in medical care. It would not have gained this popularity if
+it had been separated from Debian.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+You get a secure and stable system without extra effort for free.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Debian offers a sophisticated Bug Tracking System for free, which is a
+really important resource for development.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+There is a solid infrastructure of web servers, ftp servers with
+mirrors, mail servers, and an LDAP directory of developers with a strongly
+woven web of trust (through gpg key signing) for free.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Enhancing Debian</title>
+
+<para>
+By making changes to some packages to make them fit the needs of a target
+user group, the overall quality of Debian can be enhanced. In this way,
+enhancing Debian by making it more user friendly is a good way for
+the community to give back something to Debian. It would be a shame
+if somebody would refuse all the advantages to keeping a project
+inside Debian, and instead would decide to try to cope with the disadvantages
+because he just does not know how to do it the right way, and that it is
+normally easy to propogate changes into Debian. For instance, see
+<!-- <xref linkend="howto_itp"/> -->. This section explains how you can ask for
+a certain piece of software to be included in Debian.
+The next section describes the reason why Debian is flexible enough
+to be adapted to any purpose.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
+
+</sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <title>Adaptation to any purpose</title>
+
+<para>
+Debian is developed by about 1000 volunteers. Within this large group,
+the developers are encouraged to care for their own interests in packages
+they have chosen to look after. Thus, Debian is not bound to commercial
+interests.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Those who might fear this amount of freedom given to every single developer
+should realize that there are very strict rules, as laid out in
+<ulink url="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian's policy</ulink>,
+which glue everything together. To keep their packages in each new
+release, every developer must ensure that their packages abide by that policy.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+One common interest each individual developer shares is to make the
+best operating system for himself. This way, people with similar
+interests and tasks profit from the work of single developers. If
+users, in turn, work together with the developers by sending patches or
+bug reports for further enhancement, Debian can be improved also for
+special tasks.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+For instance, developers may have children, or may work in some
+special fields of work, and so they try to make the best system for
+their own needs. For children, they contribute to Debian Jr. or
+Debian Edu. For their field of work, they contribute to the
+appropriate Blend: Debian Med, Debian Science, and so forth.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+In contrast to employees of companies, every single Debian developer
+has the freedom and ability to realize his vision. He is not bound to
+decisions of the management of his company. Commercial distributors
+have to aim their distributions at gaining a big market share. The
+commercial possibilities in targeting children's PCs at home are
+slight, so distributions comparable to Debian Junior are not attractive
+for commercial distributors to make.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Thus, single developers have influence on development - they just have
+to <emphasis>do</emphasis> it, which is a very different position compared
+with employees of a commercial distributor. This is the reason for the
+flexibility of Debian that makes it adaptable for any purpose. In
+the Debian world, this kind of community is called
+"<emphasis><emphasis>Do</emphasis>ocracy</emphasis>" - the one who does, rules.
+</para>
+ </sect1>
+
+</chapter>
\ No newline at end of file
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