[arch-dev-public] Fwd: Goals / Mission Statement
Below is Essien's response to this thread.... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Essien Ita Essien <me@essienitaessien.com> Date: May 31, 2007 7:33 PM Subject: Re: [arch-dev-public] Goals / Mission Statement To: Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> My own goals are kinda selfish... but then aren't we all? 1. Like others... I want a lean, clean and mean system that is transparent and has a compact API (yes... distros have APIs... for Arch... its /etc/rc.conf) Which leads to: 2. A distro that helps and actively encourages distro builders to base on it for serious applications. which leads to: 3. Provide easy to use tools for extending working with ArchLinux and derived distros... with increased emphasis on the derivation tools. Basically, I'm saying promote stuff like archboot, devtools to first class citizens like pacman and makepkg. 4. Even though the distro has a clean and transparent API, we should still have scripts to manage and administer base system, so we should either provide them or foster and environment where such are provided. For instance, I have a script which i deploy on my servers to do stuff like: service httpd [start | stop | status] which i'd like to extend to do: service httpd [autostart-on | autostart-off] I'm sure a lot more have little utilities for doing stuff like that... if those kind of utilities are made 'First Class Citizens' under a parent project, more of them would automagically surface. I'm not sure if these are all actual goals or implementation details... but i'd guess there's a little of both in the above extremely selfish list. :) Keep up the good work. Cheers, Essien
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On 6/8/07, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin@gmail.com> wrote:
Below is Essien's response to this thread....
And now mine. I let this thread flounder just a bit (I've actually been really sick, but that's beside the point) in an effort to see if anyone else had some more opinions. It appears not, so here is a compiled list of all the things discussed here. They have not been trimmed, and as such there are some duplicates. The current set of goals, as stated by Judd, above: - Simple design - Remain a "install once, run forever" distribution - Continue to be a strongly community oriented distribution - Remain a lightweight, general purpose distribution - Not be dependent on any graphical interface - Provide the latest software as is practical New suggested goals: * A clean movement towards multiple architectures. * Internal organization could improve somewhat so that growth spurts are not counter-productive. * Provide the latest software within the confines of a consistent user experience * Maintaining simplicity in all things, including packages and utilities * Backing the community, and letting users flourish around us. * Binary distribution. * As few changes to the original package as possible. * Do not get in the way of the user * Help as much as possible (without violating 'not getting in the way') * Include the community in as much of this as we can. * Be up to date but never broken * Simple and lightweight. * Keep the community involved. * A lean, clean and mean system that is transparent * A distro that helps and actively encourages distro builders to base on it for serious applications. * Provide easy to use tools for extending working with ArchLinux and derived distros... * Even though the distro has a clean and transparent API, we should still have scripts to manage and administer base system, so we should either provide them or foster and environment where such are provided. So here's what I'd like to do. Lets look this over, and see if there's anything we disagree with, and bring it up. I will go through and compile everything after we see how discussion goes, and then we can bring up the contentious points in the next dev meeting. In addition, if it is easier for you (it is for me), you could rank them in order of importance, so we have a nice little "#3 is fine as long as it doesn't violate #2 and #1". I'll start with a little ranking, the way I see it: 1) Maintaining simplicity in all things, including packages and utilities 2) Clear support for multiple architectures (includes tools as in the second to last point above) 3) Backing the community, and letting users flourish around us. 4) Be up-to-date but never broken. 5) General purpose by default, allowing others to add features ("distro plugins" ? can I copyright that term?) [examples: a -docs repo, kdemod, 3rd party tools, etc] Anyway, let me know - I know this is slated for the dev meeting, but it's silly to not discuss something this large beforehand as well.
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Aaron Griffin