[gobolinux-users] A few uneasy questions...

Wed Feb 28 21:13:28 UTC 2007

Hi,

On 2/27/07, Carlo Calica <carlo at calica.com> wrote:
> What we really need is a Wiki Manager/Doc Editor.  This person would
> be in charge of the wiki.  A new user would be perfect for the job.
> They would bring an outside perspective that is needed.  Experience
> with other distro communities would be nice.  Any volunteers?
> Lucas, would it be possible to post this "job opening" on
> gobolinux.org?

I might be willing to volunteer to manage/edit the wiki.  I've been
using Gobo (Rootless) for under 2 weeks and have 9+ years experince
with a variety of Linux distributions and also with FreeBSD.

But I have a few questions:

1) What is the roadmap for Gobo 014?

2) What is the roadmap for Compile and Scripts?

3) What is the roadmap for Rootless?

(Aside: If you want to recruit new users, these roadmaps should be
cleary published on the Gobo web-site.)

4) Does the Gobo devel team have a common Social Contract (a la
Debian), a core Philosophy (a la Gentoo and Ubuntu), a shared Goal (a
la openSUSE), or a shared vision of why users should choose Gobo (a la
Fedora)?

http://www.us.debian.org/social_contract
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/philosophy
http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org
http://fedora.redhat.com/About/

-------

Regarding roadmaps:

On the following page I can find Roadmaps for 007, 011 and 012.
However, they are explicitly labeled as "Outdated documents, of
historical interest only."  Why is there no current roadmap?

http://www.gobolinux.org/index.php?page=documentation

The "roadmap" for 013 seems to be a single email by Jonas:

http://www.wotfun.com/pipermail/gobolinux-devel/2006-August/001322.html

On 5 Aug 2006 Jonas wrote:
> When the tools are done(?), we might think of planning a real (yeah,
> I know, it sounds surreal ;) ) release. For that there's a good
> thing to have a defined roadmap. Is there a defined roadmap?
>
> I have two items I want to have in the 013 release.
> * Linux-pam as primary authentication
> * LVM
>
> --
> /Jonas

I did not find any replies to Jonas's email.  (Perhaps there was IRC
discussion.)

There is also an entertaining essay by Hisham Muhammad, dated November
13th, 2003 entitled: "Organization: is there any?"

http://www.gobolinux.org/index.php?page=older_docs/articles/organization

Hisham writes:
> There is no formal organization at this point.

Hisham's concluding paragraph:

> Cool. But what are we working for, again?
>
> Every person involved in any level to this project has their own
> views about this. If you ask my opinion, I'll say I wish GoboLinux
> to grow and become significant, because I believe that would improve
> the Linux world as whole, if only for removing hardcoded paths from
> everything. My ultimate goal, "where I see GoboLinux in 5 years or
> whatever", is to have a great operating system, not just a "cool
> Linux distro".  It's no secret that I admire Apple Computer (my first
> computer was an Apple ][) and I envy Mac OS X. They gave UNIX a
> well-deserved kick in the butt, and I think projects such as ours
> here is a step in the right direction.

Today, in 2007 I believe that Ubuntu beat Gobo to the goal of being
that "great operating system" that is similar to Mac OS X in terms of
usability.  But Ubuntu is not perfect and there is still a definite
niche for Gobo... (see below):

--------

Regarding the (undocumented) Gobo Philosophy:

The closest thing to a Philosophy is "I am not Clueless".  It has the
right ideas, but to serve as a magnet to attract more developers and
users, the ideas need to copied out and reformatted into a short and
direct list of reasons to use Gobo.

http://www.gobolinux.org/index.php?page=doc/articles/clueless

I think there is a Gobo Philosophy, and I think it is a compelling
philosophy.  I just don't think it has been written down and published
on the web-site.  In my opinion, the Gobo web-site does not clearly
explain to potential new users what the (very compelling) advantages
of Gobo are.

Consider the web-site title:

GoboLinux - the alternative Linux distribution

Alternative to what, exactly?  There are over a hundred Linux
distributions, and all of them are equally alternatives.  "The
alternative Linux distribution" says to non-Gobo-users: "yet another
Linux distribution that does not know how to distinguish itself".
I've been trying to figure out a better description.  I have not come
up with one, but Jonas described it exactly in his recent email:

On 2/28/07, Jonas Karlsson <jonka750 at student.liu.se> wrote:
> I appreciate "hackability" over usability.

I believe Gobo Linux should describe itself as "the hackable Linux
distribution", or possibly as "the hackable and extensible Linux
distribution".

This would tell users who want hackability that they are in the right
place, and would also tell users who want usability that they should
probably look elsewhere.

Gobo is built to be the easiest Linux to hack and extend:

* modular - easy to add/remove software
* flexible+stable - install multiple versions at once
* flexible - mix and match InstallPackage and Compile
* easy - recipes are compact, minimal patching
* all-purpose - thanks to Rootless, Gobo can run on any *nix platform!

Like Jonas, I believe that hackability plus a reasonable level of
stability will lead to very good usability in the medium term.

And in the short term I believe that Gobo should certainly NOT try to
compete with Ubuntu in terms of ItJustWorks usability.

But stability is always desirable.

-mpb