[Frugalware-devel] Dev Help Needed

[VMiklos]

Na Tue, May 15, 2007 at 04:39:53PM +0100, Shina Owolabi <oluwasinaowolabi at gmail.com> pisal(a):
> Who will I be speaking to directly regarding this?

as long as we are just collecting ideas, feel free to write to this
list. it's good because we can share our knowledge, etc :)

obviously some topic should not be public (when we exchange private
infos), then feel free to use my private address, as you did earlier. i
mean, i've mailed some other devels and they said don't have problem /
suggest me as a contact

> Does your distribution include proprietary drivers that will require
> any form of licensing? Will we need to purchase such licenses?

there are two categories and groups in Frugalware. each package has one
or more group, for list of groups available (for example for -current
and i686) see

http://frugalware.org/packages/?op=groups&srch=.&arch=i686&ver=current

there are two special type of groups:

1) the ones that have the -extra suffix

2) the ones that do not have any hyphen

the primary group is always 1) or 2), the ones having 1) as a primary
group are installed by default

ah and probably you already found out, the two categories are the
installed/not installed by default ones, 1) and 2)

okay, i may be too long, Frugalware doesn't provide binary packages for
proprietary software, except:

- flashplugin and j2re(java) - installed by default
- fglrx (ati) and nvidia - not installed by default

for the rest, we provide buildscripts and one can easily build binary
packages on his/her own box. the difference is not that big:

pacman-g2 -Sy; pacman-g2 -S foo <- installing a binary package

repoman upd; repoman merge foo <- building and installing a package (ie.
skype, vmware, opera, etc)

> Will it be possible to include the functionality to be able to compete
> with MS Windows to a good extent(that is, for the ordinary user)?
> People need weaning off Windows a whole lot here. That is a very big
> need.

probably you know that Linux is not Windows (see
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm if this is something new), but of
course there is nothing bad in an easy to use system. just we don't
think our users are stupid, there is always a way for the ones who say
"i know what i'm doing"

> What sort of localization would you need done, in order to have
> Nigerian languages, and an African look and feel desktop environment?
> What responsibilities will you be expecting from us?

have a look at this page:

http://frugalware.org/docs/translations

this web interface allows one to translate most Frugalware-specific
text, like the installer, livecd, documentation, pacman-g2 and so on

> How long do you estimate before we can have a presentable product?

once the installer is translated, we can mark packages to be installed
by default when the Nigerian language is selected. so i think that would
be the first step. after this is done, you should check what what
applications do you need in your language - saidly as far as i see we
have zero language packs for your language, even not for KDE (it has
50+ langpacks) or OpenOffice.org (70+ langpacks)

so i think that mainly depends on how much time will it take to
translate the necessary texts

there is an other issue: we do not add features to -stable, hence the
name of it. this also means that adding new languages to the installer
in -stable is not possible. there are two choices:

- creating a separate package reposithory that would contain backports
  from -current

- waiting for our next stable release (see http://frugalware.org/roadmap
  for more info)

i would recommend first just do the work in -current, then you can
decide if you need such (not official) backports or not

> Most importantly, this Nigerian distro will have to look like its a
> home grown solution,
> so that we can get easier inroads into the powers that be for
> distribution where it pays, and is most needed. Therefore, your
> involvement will be as our technical partners. Would you have any
> reservations to that?

changing the artwork to contain your name instead of Frugalware is okay,
why not. removing our names (copyright lines) would be of course a gpl
violation, but i assueme you would not like to do so :)

> How do we start talking, and who will spearhead this discussion for your team?

is private email okay to you? then we can discuss off-list, then the
necessary/public informations can be sent to this list

one question: what charset do you use? utf8? or is there something
specific?

thanks,
VMiklos

-- 
developer of Frugalware Linux - http://frugalware.org
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