Feasibility of a very different puplet.....

[SilverPuppy]

One of the great problems with Linux is the "herding cats" that is Linux development. Puppy seems to be the one distribution that could break the mold and really make a significant dent in MicroStupid's market share. I have been around Puppy for awhile, even contributing a tad bit of code, and have seen what a great community this is. The danger is in "Feature requests." In order for any product to become a LTS product, all feature requests MUST be deferred to a future version rather than shoved into the current, or you can never achieve a truly finished product, since new code and therefore new issues are constantly being introduced. Most of the cat herd hasn't realized this, or at least, hasn't developed the discipline to do this. Can we do this?

I think that "mavrothal" in another thread explained a major problem with this model: "The 'problem' with LTS releases though, is that after 3 months is all hard work and no glory for the developers and the alpha/beta testers. Most of the devs and the testers eg the people that generate most of the traffic in this forum would be 'out of job'.
............
Triage is not fun.
Following up on tickets is not fun.
Maintaining packages is not fun.
Getting submitted packages (pets) through quality assurance is not fun.
Who on his/her right mind wants to do that for free and then have the next person telling him the this is an 'old and boring' puppy."

On the heels of Red Hat Foundation's grossing $1 Billion dollars last fiscal year, Linux is growing in the server market because of its reliability and security. I do believe that a major reason for this is that Red Hat Foundation supports the development of a stable, consistent, and polished product. This is critical to the Enterprise because most of the machines it is being used on are mission-critical, and reliability-impairing bugs are completely unacceptable. They have created a product that makes them money because it delivers consistency and reliability.

I propose starting a foundation to do the same thing for Puppy Linux. It could be a community-based organization that develops a single version of Puppy-derived Linux at a time, much the way M$ releases a single version of Windoze at a time, and then works on it to perfection. It would have its own foundation website with its own bug trackers and feature request links, its own package repository, and would follow the plan I have laid out for development cycle. It could be funded by a combination of donations and paid-for technical support, which could be made available if someone was willing. Once the product reached its LTS release, a mandatory minimum donation (with option to donate more) to download said product could be implemented, and retail discs could be made available at a fixed price. I'm not sure how the GNU GPL works with things like that, however. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a purchased product, and I'm not sure how they get that all legal, but there must be a way! Developers could be paid as independent contractors on a per-bug or per-feature basis until the time came to have a staff team, at which point per-bug cash bounties could still be offered to incentivise community bug fixes.

I have a name in mind for the product and the foundation, which I will not post here so the URL trolls don't buy the domain, which I verified is available, and hold it for ransom. I will also talk to a lawyer who owes me a favor about how to legitimately charge for a GNU GPL-based product. I want to get a feel, by show of posts, for which of the Puppy developers would be willing to do some compensated work on what just might become the biggest Puplet of all time, and which I hope could become M$'s biggest nightmare. Any feedback on your feelings about the viability or desirability of such an operation would also be GREATLY appreciated.

[SilverPuppy]

Business partners would be invaluable, too, and could get in on the ground floor, so to speak.........

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Wow, where to start?
You take a path well trodden...
RHEL is not a "purchased product" but rather a "purchased long term support" product.. However..
The GPL does not restrict monetary compensation for any works, as long as the "rules" apply:
You must provide the source.
You must release the work to be used "at will" by anyone else willing to provide the source..
Essentially, you must provide a free source for what you are selling..
Hence "Long Term Support"..

There is money in keeping Linux in a commercial environment.. but
there is no money in Linux.
Much to a certain Stallman`s chagrin...

[gcmartin]

I think there is a potential for this idea, but, to do so, would mean that one (all) must look at the "real" market for understanding.

Having worked closely in the past with labs that do systems, there is some mis-concepts that are shares here as it is presented.

Firstly, Microsoft/Apple/RedHat/Suse/Ubuntu/etc DO NOT PRODUCE A SINGLE OS!

Secondly, the Puppyland marketplace currently has many-many differing distro with various approaches in what's delivered.

And, there are many other major issues which would be needed to address in an effort to make this "project" a collaborative model with a revenue-share-reinvestment system.

These 2 items alone means that some team MUST develop an offering aimed at a target market which will become the "consumer(s)" that will use the Puppy product you develop. And, to do so, means there MUST be some consensus and agreement for participation.

Puppyland does NOT possess the tools for a collaborative environment. Further many members will NOT follow should you select a collaborative internet tools to work in. This is because there is a lot of fear in all that available via the internet. And, the fact, that there are so many differing views of Internet sites, that to get everyone in the same place with ample toolsets for extended collaboration is a paradigm shift for most members of this community.

So, all work will be done outside of Puppyland .... somewhere. GIT offers some solution, but even then, there are problems in teaming development projects that will require coordination that negates frustration in Check-in Check-out processing, not to mention addressing the needs for documentation of development and product(s) alike in a collaborative environment.

What is proposed, is something short of a new company-consortium-organization-foundation which intends to collect money for its product and future needs.

Lastly, for those who haven't already noticed, there are 2 MAJOR market shifts, in place!

This, I share, is NOT for discouraging what is offered by the OP. Instead, its just 3 of the many items that will be needed to bring a community together on a focused effort that will have a future looking to success and happiness thru interactivity.

It can be done. But, it would have a greater chance of success with those who have worked in a collaborative environment before who would pave the way in working as a team to produce what's proposed.

For starters, maybe its better to try to do a non-profit open-source "teaming" Puppy distro project, first. Before looking at the expectation of revenue.

Hope this helps

[darkcity]

The foundation should be in the interest of the community, making Puppy sustainable by allowing its developers some reward.

It could be something like Ardour, collecting donation to pay some developers

http://ardour.org/node

or it could be the bounty method, where someone willing to implement a feature gets a certain amount.

[john biles]

Hello SilverPuppy,
The concept of turning Puppy in to a polished professional release is a good one. Trouble is most of the developers here do what they do for one reason or another and the idea of now being in a controlled environment with guidelines, expectations, deadlines the list goes on would be counter productive.
If I had the money to turn Puppy in to the professional product you envisage, I wouldn't call on the puppy community at all. I'd employ Linux programmers with little or no experience with Puppy. These programmers would pull apart the code unique to Puppy to get a better understanding and make improvements based on the vision I decided. I would control ever step of the development.

Now after a while and having spent $$$$ like Ubuntu has, someone can take this release and because of the GPL build on it like Mint does or Centos does with Redhat, release it themselves and profiting from it.

Who or what would be the target market of the polished Professional Puppy?

Because a lot of money was needed to develop it, I can only assume you'd want some back in return.

In all reality this Polished Puppy has no chance of converting large amounts of Window Users over from Microsoft. Their brainwashed from years of product reinforcement which has cost Microsoft Billions through expensive advertising. Being the default operating system is Windows, these users have come to expect Windows to be there and it is almost impossible to convert them to anything else be it Mac or Linux.

I have witness the blind belief of these Windows users. Linux to them is a dirty word and not to be taken seriously.

The very nature of Linux is to take each day as it comes.

[darkcity]

I'd have to echo what John says, I've a couple of friends with cogged up PCs due to Windoze that won't even try Puppy - maybe its like black magic to them?

But I think we are looking at two extremes, I completely organised company or a completely spare time project.

There are examples of inbetweeners, maybe Inkscape.