[med-svn] r5582 - trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg

[Michael Hanke]

Author: mih
Date: 2010-12-10 02:50:50 +0000 (Fri, 10 Dec 2010)
New Revision: 5582

Modified:
   trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
Log:
Next one.

Modified: trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
===================================================================
--- trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex	2010-12-10 02:06:32 UTC (rev 5581)
+++ trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex	2010-12-10 02:50:50 UTC (rev 5582)
@@ -282,21 +282,26 @@
 \subsubsection{Bug tracking system}
 
 Users should be able to give immediate feedback about problems affecting a
-package.  They always have the choice of reporting these to the
-upstream developer, usually per email. A particular strength of
-\printurl{www.sourceforge.net}{SourceForget.net} is to bring users of
-a particular software together.  Earlier than this effort was the
-\printurl{www.debian.org/Bugs}{Debian Bug Tracking System} (BTS).  The
-maintainer of a software can decide if a bug should be forwarded to
-the upstream developers of the package or if it can be fixed by
-himself. All problems are made public, and hence the whole community
+software.  While they always have the choice of reporting these to the
+upstream developer, usually per email,
+%A particular strength of
+%\printurl{www.sourceforge.net}{SourceForget.net} is to bring users of
+%a particular software together.
+%Earlier than this effort was
+the \printurl{www.debian.org/Bugs}{Debian Bug Tracking System} (BTS) offers
+an additional channel for tracking software defects efficiently. The
+maintainer of a software can investigate whether a particular report is actually
+valid before upstream developers need to deal with it. Moreover, in many cases
+the Debian maintainer can suggest or even implement fixes, that are then sent
+to upstream alongside the bug report, if the problem is not Debian-specific.
+All problems are made public, and hence the whole community
 may contribute to solving a particular issue.
 
 In the case of Free Medical Software the upstream projects frequently
 do not feature a bug tracking system.  Thus the inclusion of such
-software into Debian adds extra value to the project, because users can
+software into Debian adds extra value to the respective projects, because users can
 report issues via the Debian BTS and the maintainer of a package
-works as a proxy to the software authors.  For a user this has
+work as a proxy to the software authors.  For a user this has
 the benefit of a consistent bug reporting interface and software
 authors might get extra technical information provided by the Debian
 maintainer who generally has decent technical knowledge.
@@ -328,15 +333,15 @@
 
 \subsubsection{Build daemons}
 
-Sites external to the Debian main repository may offer packages only
-for a subset of architectures.  The Debian main archive, however,
-automatically compiles software for all 13 architectures that are
-supported by Debian.  To get a package into Debian, be it
-novel or an update of an existing package, the maintainer of a package
-submits the source code of the program together with his modifications 
-of the code to create a package. The build daemons (or autobuilders)
-compile the packages for each of the supported systems and make the
-resulting binary package publicly available for download. Logs of the build
+Individual software developers or projects often only have access to a limited
+variety of hardware for testing and building their products. The Debian
+project, however, automatically compiles software for 13 architectures,
+including all widely used platforms for servers, desktops and embedded devices.
+To get a package into Debian, be it novel or an update of an existing package,
+the maintainer of a package submits the source code of the program together
+with his modifications of the code to create a package. The build daemons (or
+autobuilders) compile the packages for each of the supported systems and make
+the resulting binary package publicly available for download. Logs of the build
 platforms are available online for everybody's inspection.
 
 
@@ -345,15 +350,18 @@
 
 Debian contains more than 20000 binary packages, and this number is
 constantly increasing.  There is no single user who needs all these
-packages.  The typical user is interested in a subset of these
-packages.  To specify packages of one's particular interest, several
+packages.
+% duplication
+%The typical user is interested in a subset of these
+packages.
+To specify packages of one's particular interest, several
 options are provided by Debian:
 \begin{description*}
 \item[tasksel] Provision of a reasonable software selection for rather general
   tasks that can be accomplished using a set of packages installed on
   a Debian GNU/Linux system.  However, these are not yet covering
-  scientific applications. Currently developed Blend toolkit
-  will also support \command{tasksel} to enable selection of \emph{niche}
+  scientific applications. The Blend toolkit
+  will support \command{tasksel} to enable selection of \emph{niche}
   software collections, \emph{e.g.} Debian Med, right after a fresh installation of a
   general Debian system.
 % yoh: don't we want ideally "during a fresh installation of a Debian system"?
@@ -361,9 +369,11 @@
 %     adapted ISO image to approach this
 
 \item[command line package management] \command{apt} and \command{aptitude} provide means to
-  search for packages of particular interest by its name or words in
-  the package's description. Every package also indicates, as set by
-  its maintainer, references to other packages of potential interest.
+  search for packages of particular interest by name or words in
+  the package's description, or assigned tags like ``works with DICOM''.
+  Additionally, every package also lists related packages that, for example,
+  enhance its functionality or offer alternative implementations of some
+  particular functionality.
 
 % yoh: what about
 %    debtags + axi-cache (at)
@@ -371,21 +381,23 @@
 % at: yes, needs to be added here and also in Blends documentation
 
 \item[GUI] There are several graphical user interfaces to manipulate
-  the installation of packages on a Debian installation.  The most
+  the installation of packages on a Debian system.  The most
   popular is \command{synaptic}.  It allows users to seek
   for certain packages and to display detailed information about each
   package.
 \end{description*}
 
-Debian officially maintains 13 different architectures.  Additionally
-there exist not supported  officially ports to other architectures and
-operating systems cores. Debian package management and distribution infrastructure
-has been adopted to other operating systems lacking an built-in equivalent,
+In addition to its 13 officially supported architectures, there are
+ports to even more hardware architectures and operating systems kernels.
+Moreover, Debian package management and distribution infrastructure
+has been adopted to other operating systems lacking a built-in equivalent,
 \emph{i.e.} Fink on Mac OS X
 (\printurl{fink.sourceforge.net}{fink.sourceforge.net}).
 
 % yoh: context below is not necessary about GNU and even more so
 %      not about Linux
+% MH: agreed, and moreover if that is mentioned somewhere it should move to
+%     very beginning, since we talk about this stuff all the time already
 A {\itshape distribution\/} is a collection of software packages.
 There are general distributions, which do not have a specific target
 user group and try to provide a universal coverage,