[haiku] Re: Rethinking the Haiku Distro Guidelines
- From: Firat Can Basarir <firatcanbasarir@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:01:11 +0300
Hello,
I am not a big fan of distributions myself. But the most important
thing about free software is independence. I don't want to be
controlled by any organization and, frankly, I don't wouldn't want to
use an OS that is almost impossible to be forked.
Distributions should be discouraged but it should be made clear that
it is possible to fork Haiku and start a new project based on it. That
provides the assurance that even if Haiku Inc. is acquired by some
evil company, people will be able to keep using their system simply by
using a fork of Haiku.
This is the main property of free software. I know it's obvious but I
just wanted to underline it. Don't cripple Haiku's freedom while
trying to avoid "the distro mess".
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I agree with the general notion that re-packaging an existing Haiku release
> and adding a few more pieces of software is not different from what ends up
> on our harddrives when we customize our installation.
>
> But still everybody seems to want to hold on to the concept of forcing
> people to change the name from Haiku to something else if the changes
> become too much. Or if they include development code or whatever. IMHO,
> this is just too complicated. Who decides what is just a customization and
> what is diverting too much from Haiku's unique look and feel? It becomes
> impossible to draw a clear line.
>
> But something else is bothering me. If distributions are being made to
> address specific needs, and we all agree that we would like to address
> these needs in Haiku itself eventually, then isn't the obvious, preferable
> solution that whoever puts in work to make a customized version of Haiku
> should instead be encouraged to work directly with the project? In general,
> we try our best to welcome new contributors. I dare say that most people do
> not have a hard time getting their patches into Haiku, as long as they work
> and follow the coding style. There are some exceptions to this, I am
> painfully aware of (Brecht may throw something in my direction). The
> biggest single reason for patches being hard to get commited is when they
> are fairly complex and introduce new problems along with solving others.
>
> Anyway, my point is we want people to work with us, not in parallel. And my
> first argument was that the trademark policy needs to be crystall clear.
> For these two reasons, I would say we should not make it any easier to spin
> off custom distributions of Haiku. We should protect the Haiku name and
> logo, period. If people want to influence the distribution to address
> specific needs, but they don't want to release something not being called
> Haiku, they have the very sensible option to become a project contributor.
> Or they need to take the extra hassle of removing a few strings and
> replacing some bitmaps. Which is easy to do, contrary to what some seem to
> believe.
>
> Best regards,
> -Stephan
>
>
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