Proposal: Ubuntu Metadistribution

[Micah Cowan]

Gueven Bay wrote:
> 
> Hello again , 
>  
>> On Sat, Apr 21, 2007 at 08:13:13AM +0200, Gueven Bay wrote:
>>>> So what is it that you are proposing specifically?
>>> What I want is to combine the worlds of several free operating systems with the "philosophy" of Ubuntu:
>>> ease of use, shiny new releases every eye blink , cool community, "business awareness"  but - with the combination 
>>> of several operating systems under Ubuntu - the _full_ choice the free software world gives.
>> You are proposing something very abstract, which I could interpret as
>> something which already exists.  There are already many free operating
>> systems based on Ubuntu, and the system has been architected so as to make
>> it easier to create more.
> 
> 
> No, this not an abstract thing. And no, there are not "many free operating systems based on Ubuntu" (SIC! 
> because Ubuntu is basing on an operating system) :

These are not mutually exclusive facts; as it happens, they are both true.

I happen to agree with Matt that your original description was quite 
vague; it's nothing to get defensive about: just refine your precision.

> There is only one at this moment: Linux (or better GNU/Linux).

Matt has already demonstrated, with the concrete example of the existing 
OpenSolaris derivative. AFAICT, that derivative has nothing Linux about 
it (why would it?)—though I'm sure it has much GNU about it.

In fact, NexentaOS would probably be a great starting point for you to 
look into accomplishing what you want (for OpenSolaris): 
http://www.gnusolaris.org/, though AFAICT they use only the Debian 
packaging system (they only wanted the kernel from OpenSolaris).

>>> + The Ubuntu specific programs and packages ported to OpenSolaris (for example the installer, the update notifier but 
>>> also the Gnome adaptations of Ubuntu).
>>> Please have in mind here that the OpenSolaris world stays as it is and it is known to the user (with some very little adaptations).

It sounds to me, that I would not call what you are calling an 
OpenSolaris "Ubuntu derivative" or metadistribution at all; it sounds 
more like: port the things that you like in Ubuntu to some other 
distributions, which sounds like a wonderful idea. I believe that it is 
one of our goals (in the CoC, in fact) to contribute, as much as 
possible, our improvements back to the FLOSS community at large, and 
work may already have begun for some of these things.

I believe, though, that in order to accomplish this, you'll probably 
need to work with the respective "portee" operating systems somewhat 
more closely than with the Ubuntu developers (other than as a 
knowledge-base of information regarding the packages being ported).

I'm at a loss as to what you expect a metadistribution to be, though. 
The software, obviously, has already been written, and AFAICT most of it 
is quite portable. The only thing that needs changing, to do as you seem 
to desire, is to strip the Ubuntization from it (aside from packaging, 
it'd be inappropriate to include such things as the patches we add to 
make things look for /usr/bin/x-www-browser, etc), and add the packaging 
stuffs for the other Operating Systems, and anything else necessary to 
integrate it properly with the destination OS. I'm at a loss as to how 
to generalize such a thing, as the requisite changes are going to differ 
very substantially, from target to target.

-- 
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer...
http://micah.cowan.name/