[arch-general] ArchBang and other derivates resemblance to Arch
On the forums, we see an increasing number of threads about ArchBang. Understandably so, since not only does it carry "Arch" in the name, it also uses the same styling [1], and supposedly users are told there to use the Arch wiki and forum for support. People are asking if ArchBang is an official Arch project [2], which it obviously isn't. ArchBang is more a one-click or no-config install which goes against the Arch philosophy. Also our Forum Etiquette states that community support is _only_ given for installations done from official Arch installation media [3]. While ArchBang (and probably some other spin-off distros) are very similar and sometimes almost identical to Arch, they are _not_ Arch and in my opinion this should be made more clear to avoid any damage to the Arch project as a whole. What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now. [1] http://archbang.org/ [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=889066#p889066 [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette#How_to_Post
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base. Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum. As a package maintainer, i'm more interested to work each other fixing potentials bugs. This already happened with chakra team and on several occasions i got emails from them. I won't reject any of this contributions and i would help any time. What i don't like is their website theme. Is identically with ours and from here is the confusion.
[1] http://archbang.org/ [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=889066#p889066 [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette#How_to_Post
-- Ionuț
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 11:07 +0200, Ionuț Bîru wrote:
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base.
Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum.
Would this mean modifications need to be made on our forum policy (as cited by Olivier?). Personally I see ArchBang as similar enough to Arch that most help/problem-solving is probably pretty identical. Its not the same as Chakra was, after all. But clear policy helps.
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 17:12 +0800, Ng Oon-Ee wrote:
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 11:07 +0200, Ionuț Bîru wrote:
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base.
Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum.
Would this mean modifications need to be made on our forum policy (as cited by Olivier?).
Personally I see ArchBang as similar enough to Arch that most help/problem-solving is probably pretty identical. Its not the same as Chakra was, after all. But clear policy helps.
I think you missed the point here, as archlinux users TU/Dev's we don't know what archbang does behind the "scenes" so because it still uses archlinux packages you can say we can help these guys on our forums. But because they do some special stuff we actually can't. So i would rather point out that the get redirected to archbang and get help there. -- Jelle van der Waa
On 02/07/2011 11:12 AM, Ng Oon-Ee wrote:
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 11:07 +0200, Ionuț Bîru wrote:
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base.
Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum.
Would this mean modifications need to be made on our forum policy (as cited by Olivier?).
Personally I see ArchBang as similar enough to Arch that most help/problem-solving is probably pretty identical. Its not the same as Chakra was, after all. But clear policy helps.
asking information about the ArchBang doesn't fit in the policy that Oliver pointed. That is my opinion. if ArchBang have their own repo with custom packages but if somebody is asking for help that involves their installation procedure, they should be redirected to ArchBang forum. They have their own bugtracker too and all ArchBug should be reported there. -- Ionuț
I also have no problem with other distros using Arch as a basis, but the problem is that it causes a pretty big influx of newbies who have no idea how to configure and maintain Arch since they installed a one-click installer. The devs have mentioned before that we want to attract serious, competent linux users, and this goal is in danger of being compromised when Arch is more or less directly associated with distros like ArchBang. This also addresses Jelle's remark; do we want to keep having to redirect users back to the ArchBang forums? Since they get told there to come to ours. ;-) Maybe it would be better if a more fundamental line is drawn between the two, such as the website design like Ionuț mentions. And a clear statement on the ArchBang website that it is _not_ an official Arch project. 2011/2/7 Ionuț Bîru <ibiru@archlinux.org>
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base.
Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum.
As a package maintainer, i'm more interested to work each other fixing potentials bugs. This already happened with chakra team and on several occasions i got emails from them. I won't reject any of this contributions and i would help any time.
What i don't like is their website theme. Is identically with ours and from here is the confusion.
[2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=889066#p889066 [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette#How_to_Post
-- Ionuț
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 10:26 +0100, Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE wrote:
I also have no problem with other distros using Arch as a basis, but the problem is that it causes a pretty big influx of newbies who have no idea how to configure and maintain Arch since they installed a one-click installer.
The devs have mentioned before that we want to attract serious, competent linux users, and this goal is in danger of being compromised when Arch is more or less directly associated with distros like ArchBang.
This also addresses Jelle's remark; do we want to keep having to redirect users back to the ArchBang forums? Since they get told there to come to ours. ;-)
That last paragraph is not unique to ArchBang, I remember a time when Ubuntu users were regularly (it seems) told to come check on the Arch forums....
Am 07.02.2011 10:26, schrieb Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE:
Maybe it would be better if a more fundamental line is drawn between the two, such as the website design like Ionuț mentions. And a clear statement on the ArchBang website that it is _not_ an official Arch project.
Maybe it would be a good first step to be clear about what ArchBang really is - and as far as I can see, it is simply a customized installer, nothing more. I like that their website resembles ours though.
We've had a few occurrences on the Arch forums where it became clear that ArchBang actually ships some changed configs, so this could become quite confusing i guess. 2011/2/7 Thomas Bächler <thomas@archlinux.org>
Am 07.02.2011 10:26, schrieb Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE:
Maybe it would be better if a more fundamental line is drawn between the two, such as the website design like Ionuț mentions. And a clear statement on the ArchBang website that it is _not_ an official Arch project.
Maybe it would be a good first step to be clear about what ArchBang really is - and as far as I can see, it is simply a customized installer, nothing more.
I like that their website resembles ours though.
On 7 February 2011 17:33, Thomas Bächler <thomas@archlinux.org> wrote:
Am 07.02.2011 10:26, schrieb Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE:
Maybe it would be better if a more fundamental line is drawn between the two, such as the website design like Ionuț mentions. And a clear statement on the ArchBang website that it is _not_ an official Arch project.
Maybe it would be a good first step to be clear about what ArchBang really is - and as far as I can see, it is simply a customized installer, nothing more.
I like that their website resembles ours though.
Think about it as a custom larch or archiso compilation. That way, users using official avenue for support is still proper. However, we are walking a thin line here. It would appear as if we're showing partiality and are biased. Where would we draw the line? Intention of the distribution?
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 10:26 +0100, Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE wrote:
I also have no problem with other distros using Arch as a basis, but the problem is that it causes a pretty big influx of newbies who have no idea how to configure and maintain Arch since they installed a one-click installer.
The devs have mentioned before that we want to attract serious, competent linux users, and this goal is in danger of being compromised when Arch is more or less directly associated with distros like ArchBang.
This also addresses Jelle's remark; do we want to keep having to redirect users back to the ArchBang forums? Since they get told there to come to ours. ;-)
Hmm a bit strange, in my opinion a new distro (fork or such) should deal with their own support.
Maybe it would be better if a more fundamental line is drawn between the two, such as the website design like Ionuț mentions. And a clear statement on the ArchBang website that it is _not_ an official Arch project.
2011/2/7 Ionuț Bîru <ibiru@archlinux.org>
On 02/07/2011 10:51 AM, Olivier Keun wrote:
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
there is nothing wrong with this distro and others distros that have arch as a base.
Is good that the users are interested in this spins and that are discussions about them on our forum.
As a package maintainer, i'm more interested to work each other fixing potentials bugs. This already happened with chakra team and on several occasions i got emails from them. I won't reject any of this contributions and i would help any time.
What i don't like is their website theme. Is identically with ours and from here is the confusion.
[2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=889066#p889066 [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette#How_to_Post
-- Ionuț
-- Jelle van der Waa
Sorry Jelle, i think you misunderstood, i definitely do want their support taken place on their own forums. I merely meant they (ArchBang) should explicitly _not_ tell users to seek support on our forums -- which is what is happening now. 2011/2/7 Jelle van der Waa <jelle@vdwaa.nl>
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 10:26 +0100, Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE wrote:
I also have no problem with other distros using Arch as a basis, but the problem is that it causes a pretty big influx of newbies who have no idea how to configure and maintain Arch since they installed a one-click installer.
The devs have mentioned before that we want to attract serious, competent linux users, and this goal is in danger of being compromised when Arch is more or less directly associated with distros like ArchBang.
This also addresses Jelle's remark; do we want to keep having to redirect users back to the ArchBang forums? Since they get told there to come to ours. ;-)
Hmm a bit strange, in my opinion a new distro (fork or such) should deal with their own support.
On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 09:51 +0100, Olivier Keun wrote:
On the forums, we see an increasing number of threads about ArchBang. Understandably so, since not only does it carry "Arch" in the name, it also uses the same styling [1], and supposedly users are told there to use the Arch wiki and forum for support.
People are asking if ArchBang is an official Arch project [2], which it obviously isn't. ArchBang is more a one-click or no-config install which goes against the Arch philosophy. Also our Forum Etiquette states that community support is _only_ given for installations done from official Arch installation media [3].
While ArchBang (and probably some other spin-off distros) are very similar and sometimes almost identical to Arch, they are _not_ Arch and in my opinion this should be made more clear to avoid any damage to the Arch project as a whole.
What are your thoughts about this? I'm hoping to get an official reaction from our dev-team, so we can avoid some of the confusion that is present now.
[1] http://archbang.org/ [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=889066#p889066 [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Forum_Etiquette#How_to_Post
Not to harash or insult the guy from the forum post, but he seems like a major newbie, in my opinion. I think the ArchBang team talked with our devs / the overlord about the archlogo and copyright stuff. But back on the discussion, my opinion would be that all confused users on the archlinux forums should be directed to the archbang forums without problems. Putting a banner somewhere would be a bit overreacting -- Jelle van der Waa
participants (7)
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Ionuț Bîru
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Jelle van der Waa
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Ng Oon-Ee
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Olivier Keun
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Olivier Keun | CAPSTONE
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Ray Rashif
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Thomas Bächler