mavrothal wrote:I should admit that I’m not really involved in puppy for quite some time now....
It is clear that puppylinux after BK, does not have any full time developer/builder to push things forward....
I would suggest it is time puppylinux to follow the FatDog example, where an OS is released by 2 (or more) persons, so when one is busy it can go on with the other(s)..
Hi Mavrothal,
Did the irony of what you wrote (highlighted above) not hit you between the eyes? You summarily put the nail in the wood, picked up the hammer, place your thumb directly on top of the nail, and swung the hammer And I mean this with all the respect you richly deserve (as you're one of our gurus here, and we can't afford to lose anymore such as you)
You remember Porteus, before how it is now in its recent form (where it's regressed to doing what has happened here in puppyland)? Going to Porteus' old homepage, it was a beautiful one page layout that greeted you with simple "
build & customize" layout that let you
completely build the OS of your choice, with what you wanted in it, and it happened right there and you could download your build in short order. The thrill was incredible. It was tangible. And even a novice could understand how to choose OS-bit type, the desktop choice, to what they wanted in it (within reason), to time/date/etc simple configs, to browser choice, to email client choice, chat, etc, and a few other thingss. It was seductive. It was wonderful. It showed a glimpse of a future that "could be". Remember that?
In my honest opinion, this is what Woof-CE has the potential to achieve. Our greatest strength, the absolute uncontrolled diversity of different pups and pup-related distros, is also our greatest weakness, and it is the very thing causing, as you wrote, the
stagnation (possibly a bit too strong a word to describe things). Currently, regarding woof-CE, the problem is it seems it has only really been jilst, doing way too much, trying to keep the whole thing together. A few of the builders, like micko, also try to keep their respective woof-CE builds up-to-date & working. But there needs and should be so much more. The future is here in this path forward. Thus, my opinion is the "push" should be here, at woof-CE, and not on individual releases anymore.
Billtoo, and Sailor, two of the overall user-side of woof-CE build virtuosos I've learned from, are the shining examples of what Woof-CE could become. I mean, they made me into a builder, using the Woof-CE process. Imagine what would happen in puppyland if the Woof-CE process was brought to the level of what the old Porteus home build page used to be, where anyone could show up at Porteus and feel INCREDIBLE as their custom-build was made. Imagine a Woof-Ce singular home page, and do a build all by just clicking their mouse. Just imagine what this could become. And the flowering it would unleash.
The constant refrain I hear from friends, when I turn them on to puppy, whether it is a pup and/or pup-related build, is that they get lost & overwhelmed at the wildness of choices. It is "not" that a builder disappears and/or moves on with their life, it is the overwhelming feeling of these choices. It turns them off, quickly. As hard as it is to understand, let alone accept, we humans struggle we presented with a wild orgy of choices. Wild gobs of choices are great for those that enter the food-pit to eat (a metaphor describing us regulars here), but as it stands now these gobs of choices are a massive turn-off for all and anyone else.
You know, there is currently a puppy-murga-land killer out there, and it is called Sparky-Linux. They are clearly a puppy-wannabe, but they are going the route of offering many different looking DE builds & choices within based off of singular custom build base(s) that the user-builder will eventually control & choose. They are soon, it is rumored, going to be tinkering with what Porteus used to do with that old hompe page build style. If this happens, murga here will fall even more precipitously off the map than it already is. Thus, iImagine if Woof-CE, now, did this, giving the user the thrill, satisfaction, incipient curiousity satiated, of clicking through & doing a custom-build themselves. Again, I say, if this happened, murga & puppy-verse would experience a new bursting-forth, a new explosion, and the beautiful thing is the whole process would keep reinforcing itself. And for any claims that this approach would kill off individuality and expression and such, then the point is being missed. The wildness of expression, individuality, and such, could be expressed INSIDE woof-CE
IF that person puts his/her choices inside the build process. Something that is easily done, yet it all is corralled, focused, and made "
simply sexy" by the porteus-build like approach of the new woof-CE.