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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE CVS Developers Edition of Knoppix (Knopdex)
From:       Datschge <datschge () gmx ! de>
Date:       2003-06-25 13:19:47
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Hello James.

In the past I voiced my opinion that a KDE CVS live CD would be a great tool 
for several reasons, the points you mentioned and some more:
- non technical users can sneak a peek at development progress (great for 
those asking for "official development builds")
- kde developer can get up and going very quickly on any computer
- non-kde developers can check out progress regarding interaction between KDE 
CVS and non-KDE programs
- translators can understand context of word usage without sacrificing their 
more stable builds, the same for documentation writers
- tech journalists/press can report about new technical features in the 
development versions more easily (possibly counterbalancing all the longhorn 
press)
- interested companies can look at the technical state of a running KDE CVS 
and compare it to the last official release
- usability people can do usability tests with the bleeding edge stuff so 
still remaining usability issues could get solved before the first official 
release

I stopped promoting this however since a majority of people seem to see only 
the possible bad side of such a live CD, assuming people have assumptions 
like:
- live CD has to be perfect, everything else will put KDE into a bad light
- everyone will want to install it, making official releases in vain
- everyone will talk about the live CD's bugs, causing confusion for those who 
only target either the KDE CVS Head and/or 3.1.x Branch where those don't 
exist (anymore)

It's obvious that a KDE CVS live CD hardly will ever offered officially by KDE 
itself this way which I think is kind of sad but playing safe for the project 
as a whole. It needs to be very pronounced in every way possible that a KDE 
CVS live CD is only a "technology preview" *not* intended for installation 
and productive use. If there'll ever be a public release it better has its 
own Bugzilla where bugs from the live CD are collected and only forwarded to 
bugs.kde.org if they are confirmed in CVS. This would basically make it an 
independent bleeding edge distribution (which I would be willing to support, 
call it KGX ;).

As for now I guess it's a good idea to keep Knopdex private and only give it 
to interested persons who can prove to be active contributors to or 
knowledgeable supporters of KDE and know about the whole difficulty of this 
issue.

Cheers, Datschge =)

 
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