[med-svn] r5575 - trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg
Steffen Möller
moeller at alioth.debian.org
Thu Dec 9 22:43:33 UTC 2010
Author: moeller
Date: 2010-12-09 22:43:33 +0000 (Thu, 09 Dec 2010)
New Revision: 5575
Modified:
trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
Log:
More work on the discussion.
Modified: trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
===================================================================
--- trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex 2010-12-09 22:02:32 UTC (rev 5574)
+++ trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex 2010-12-09 22:43:33 UTC (rev 5575)
@@ -700,35 +700,39 @@
\subsubsection{Role inside Debian}
The Debian Pure Blends framework was mainly inspired by the \DebianMed
-needs. Regarding implementation the Debian Edu project -- another
-Blend -- is much more advanced. There are several reasons for this
-fact. The main reasons are the availability of software for education
-and the fact that a Norwegian company payed developers to work full
-day on this project. \DebianMed tried to gain profit from common
-technologies and generalised some tools of Debian Edu for all Blends.
-Moreover inside \DebianMed some new Blend tools were developed which
-enhance the easy build of metapackages.
+needs. The implementation e.g. by the Debian Edu project -- another
+Blend -- is far more advanced. There are several reasons for this
+fact. The main reasons is an enormous availability of software for education
+and the fact that a Norwegian company paid developers to work full
+time on this project. \DebianMed profited from thoese
+technologies and generalised some tools from Debian Edu for all Blends.
+Conversly, inside \DebianMed some new Blend tools were developed which
+now enhance the easy preparation of metapackages.
-For documentation purpose in addition to the metapackages there is a
-so called web sentinel consisting of so called tasks and bugs pages.
+Beyond the meta-packages, another service of the blends is the
+so called web sentinel. It is a web portal to guide the contributors
+to the current active tasks (packages) and their associated
+bug reports.
The tasks pages are providing an overview about all the work fields
like biology, medical imaging, practice management etc. which are
covered by \DebianMed. The list of all the packages is regenerated
-daily and includes some meta information and the description of the
-packages in this task. So the output of the project can be easily
+on a daily basis and includes some meta information to e.g. point to
+relevant scientific publications and the description of the
+packages in this task. So the output of the project can be easily \marginpar{just have a regular reference to the URL}
viewed at \printurl{http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/tasks/}{the
tasks page of \DebianMed}.
For the comfort of the user these pages are translated (if the
\printurl{http://ddtp.debian.net/}{Debian Description Translation
- Project} has provided translations), includes screenshots from
+ Project} has provided translations), include screenshots from
\printurl{http://screenshots.debian.net/}{screenshots.debian.net} if
-available, gives information about the usage of a package by querying
+available, give information about the usage of a package by querying
\printurl{http://popcon.debian.org/}{Debian Popularity Contest}
-results and informs about versions packaged for Debian as well as a
-notification about new upstream versions. Moreover the visitor of
+results and inform about versions packaged for Debian as well as a
+notification about new releases. Moreover, the visitor of
these pages gets an easy option to provide a screenshot or a missing
-or translations as well as fixing a wrong translation.
+or translations as well as fixing a wrong translation, i.e. everyone
+is visibly invited to contribute.
There are also quality assurance tools developed for instance there is
an overview about
@@ -744,32 +748,43 @@
The \DebianMed project serves as a common platform for all Free
Software that may be utilised in medical care. Tools developed in
-computational biology is just a part of it because it is an important
-brick in medical science. With \DebianMed's ambition to become the
-platform of choice for medical work, conform with the principles of
-the \printurl{www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy}{Debian
- Policy}\cite{debianpolicy}, by the means of the distribution of
-development within the Debian Society, a well established reference
-platform for bioinformatics research and its medical applications has
-evolved and will continue to improve. The organisation is open, both
-to new members and to external sites offering packages for
-installations.
+computational biology are just a part of it because it is an important
+brick in medical sciences.
+The contributors to \DebianMed aim at providing the best possible
+platform for medical work. The Freedom for users to apply those
+technologies for local needs, i.e. new scientific problems or
+particular regulations in health care, are intrinsically connected
+with that prime ambition. The Debian Free Software Guidelines
+match those nicely and are applicable across platforms.
-\subsection{Differences from other distributions}
+Debian is open. It welcomes new members, welcomes new packages
+and shares its developments across platforms.
-The Debian GNU/Linux distribution differs from others in several
-ways. Firstly, Debian is a non-commercial organisation of volunteers,
-that does not sell anything. The second and most appealing difference
-is the peer review and continuous pressure among the members to
-provide a high quality of packages. The Debian society has a
-constitution, elects its leader, and transparently describes policies
-for the creation of packages utilising specific technologies.
-With these principles, Debian achieved the largest collection
-of ready-to-install Free Software on the Internet.
+%
+% Can this subsection go? OpenSuSE I do not know, but at least
+% Fedora is just plain excellent in exactly that, too, and it
+% has some other principles from which Debian can learn, still.
+%
+%\subsection{Other distributions}
+%
+%The Debian GNU/Linux distribution differs from others in several
+%ways. Firstly, Debian is a non-commercial organisation of volunteers,
+%that does not sell anything. The second and most appealing difference
+%is the peer review and continuous pressure among the members to
+%provide a high quality of packages. The Debian society has a
+%constitution, elects its leader, and transparently describes policies
+%for the creation of packages utilising specific technologies.
+%
+%With these principles, Debian achieved the largest collection
+%of ready-to-install Free Software on the Internet.
+%
+% Could we say what needs to be said here somewhat earlier, possibly?
+% I am not sure I want BioLinux to be mentioned in this way, with
+% whom an active bidirectional collaboration is only developing now
\subsubsection{Importance of community support}
That strong support within the community of users is essential for the
@@ -778,39 +793,70 @@
distributors are well aware of. E.g., RedHat has initiated Fedora as
a free supplement to their commercial distribution. It is this reason
why \DebianMed is part of Debian and why groups external to the Debian
-society, like BioLinux, are also keen on close collaborations with the
+society, like BioLinux\marginpar{ref for BioLinux}, are also keen on close collaborations with the
community.
-\subsubsection{Road map to come closer to \DebianMed}
+\subsubsection{Approaching \DebianMed}
-\begin{enumerate*}
-\item Join the \printurl{lists.debian.org/debian-med}{\DebianMed
- mailing list}.
-\item Check what projects are missing and ask Debian maintainers for
- official inclusion. There is a sponsoring program by which even non
- Debian developers can provide packages which are checked and
- uploaded by official maintainers. There is no point in keeping good
- quality softwares outside of Debian.
-\item \printurl{http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/tasks/}{The tasks
- page of \DebianMed} mentioned above does not only contain the work
- that was done -- it contains also a nicely formated list which
- projects would be interesting to reach the final goal to cover each
- task in medical care with Free Software. This list inside each
- section might give some idea where help might be needed.
-\item \halfsloppy Verify whether one needs special configuration for
- your project. If yes, verify which possibilities are given in the
- Debian Pure Blends effort. It is more than collecting software but
- bringing the software to your target users while taking the burden
- from any configuration issues from his back.
-\item The only reason to keep things outside of Debian are licenses
- which are not compatible with DFSG. All other parts of your
- projects can be included and your time for everyday package building
- tasks can be saved and the workload shared with other people
- following the same road.
-\end{enumerate*}
+Anybody already using regular Debian or Ubuntu and having a package installed
+the is maintained by \DebianMed, is already a user of \DebianMed.
+To have a new package shipped with the distribution, one
+can
+as on the \printurl{lists.debian.org/debian-med}{\DebianMed
+ mailing list}. The developers of the software would
+be helped with the packaging and offered guidance towards
+self-uploading future versions.
+%% I have difficulties with the remaining items. The style is
+%% IMHO not approrpiate for a paper and certainly should not be
+%% part of the discussion.
+%% Not everything should be in Debian but only what can be
+%% maintained.
+%\item Check what projects are missing and ask Debian maintainers for
+% official inclusion. There is a sponsoring program by which even non
+% Debian developers can provide packages which are checked and
+% uploaded by official maintainers. There is no point in keeping good
+% quality softwares outside of Debian.
+%\item \printurl{http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/tasks/}{The tasks
+% page of \DebianMed} mentioned above does not only contain the work
+% that was done -- it contains also a nicely formated list which
+% projects would be interesting to reach the final goal to cover each
+% task in medical care with Free Software. This list inside each
+% section might give some idea where help might be needed.
+%\item \halfsloppy Verify whether one needs special configuration for
+% your project. If yes, verify which possibilities are given in the
+% Debian Pure Blends effort. It is more than collecting software but
+% bringing the software to your target users while taking the burden
+% from any configuration issues from his back.
+%\item The only reason to keep things outside of Debian are licenses
+% which are not compatible with DFSG. All other parts of your
+% projects can be included and your time for everyday package building
+% tasks can be saved and the workload shared with other people
+% following the same road.
+%\end{enumerate*}
+\subsection{Developments}
+
+Some scientific funding agencies put considerable pressure on
+research grant applicants to explain how to possibly bring their
+developments to practical applications, i.e. to distribute
+the software. Debian and its derivative distributions are a
+very suitable medium for this purpose.
+
+\DebianMed hopes to help the communication between developers
+for the sharing of data management, i.e. the input for their
+tools that should be consistent for all tools contributing
+to a scientific workflow. While some ideas like e.g. getData \marginpar{wiki.debian.org/getData},
+have been developed, this still needs to be amended to suite
+the community better.
+
+Another aspect is education. Debian or Ubuntu are used in
+many student computer labs around the globe with many having
+packages from \DebianMed installed. We should hope for the
+development of courses that involve Debian packages and those
+course materials to be shared similarly to the tools themselves.
+
\section{Conclusions}
The real use of Free Software for medical care is very heterogeneous,
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