[blag-whereto] BLAG 1xK

[Abdur-Rahman Morgan]

Hello All,

The question of where we take BLAG and GNU Linux, is a question that
encompasses what legacy we want to leave for future generations who
undoubtedly will have to overcome challenges that the GNU GPL will continue
to fight to ensure our freedoms. As we enter the second decade of the 21st
century, as users, developers, activists, artists, technosapiens, we must
think and re-define how new technologies and advances in computing and
electronics will allow us to maintain the principles that bought is here.
Our physical existence and virtual resources that have continue to closely
come together are integral on how we get work done in our daily lives.

For the past three years (and continuing on) I have enjoyed using BLAG 60k
and 70k, playing around with 80k and adjusting to using 90k, on systems that
ranged from a Pentium II to now my AMD Athlon 64 X-2 Desktop. Before that, I
had not understood the issues that differentiates BLAG, gNewSense, uTuto,
Dynebolic, GNUStep and Musix while using Fedora Core, but a trip to FSF
Annual members meeting quickly changed that. I have been happy with all
versions of BLAG even with the challenges in 90k with the issues with yum
and apt, because it somewhat reminded me of the days when I started using
Linux, with Redhat 8 and 9 and configuring some of the hardware manually was
a pain. As a whole community we have come very far and I am proud of what
has evolved using Free Software from a social, political and technological
standpoint.

BLAG 90k and prior versions
-----------------------------------
We need to continue on the same path Jebba has bought us. And Jebba we will
need your guidance to ensure that the distribution is maintained. We have a
reputation in the community that is respected and all of us need to bring
our skills together during this time to demonstrate the power of who we are
as individuals and blag users. We need to keep BLAG 90k up to date by:

Ensuring we have server(s) that it can be downloaded from
Ensuring that it is available using peer to peer clients through torrents
Ensuring that we can keep up with the updates.

In order to accomplish this, we will need to define at least 3 or 4 sources
it is presently available (direct and or as a mirror) and ensure that we are
providing the most updated copies for individuals to install. Any present
updates should be included as we continue to maintain and update 90k. This I
think we owe to users who are visiting our site downloading, trying it, and
using it and to the Free Software Foundation that has our name listed among
distributions. There is a body of users using Fedora who I think we have the
ability to persuade that using BLAG will change the whole GNU/Linux
experience.

BLAG 1xK and onward
---------------------------
I think our focus should defintely be on improving upon what 90k was and put
the best of 70k in there. I think 10k should be based on a live image to
serve users who are still using older systems because that is one of the
original goals I recall from the Wiki. A market is still there for us to
demonstrate to individuals who are using older hardware that they can have a
system that is viable in the 21st century with GNU/Linux. As more
individuals are using flash drives to do installs on systems with bootable
bios's, I think utilzing FUSBi, would greatly help the spread of the
distribution.

I was hoping that we could spin out a 64-bit version possibly in 11 or 12k

>From a package standpoint, we need to come together and decide what we want
to see in 10k and make sure that a combination of the most utilized tools,
the best technologies available for Graphics, Office, Sound and Video are
out there for our community. Let's create a poll and thread on the forum and
discuss on IRC and the lists the software you are using. I recently
discovered Last Exit, the last.fm client and am loving.

Meeting Times
------------------
I think as much as I have read the forums and been on the IRC Channel, I
would like to see a weekly online meeting around the same time as the weekly
meetings take place physically. While, we all live in different time zones
and I think moving forward we should loosely discuss where we are going
while setting up a timetable of our goals. This information can then be
posted on this list, the forum and the wiki for individuals to provide
feedback.

Response to Jayeola
---------------------------
You are defintintely right. We need to organize and plan. If we fail to plan
then we fail hundreds of users that are not only using BLAG, but those can
become part of our community and we miss an opportunity to show every other
distrubtion the best of what 100% Free Software has to offer. For new users
of GNU/Linux, we want them to become comfortable using the system. I am a
big fan of literacy and I think we can create a Wiki, that is truly
informative for non-blag users as well who are using similar systems. The
contributions that 2.6 partially bought on spoiled me, but has made Linux a
pleasure to use and I think we need to spoil our users while creating a
means for them to learn as well

A quick thought about the Wiki
------------------------------------
The wiki should definitely be a learning tool. Not just a place to put
information, but a place where information can empower people to do things
and bring those ideas back to the community

A quick thought about the forums
---------------------------------------
I love the forums just they way they are. I only recommend having a
timestamp on each thread

Do nothing or demand the impossible because it is possible
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think in the next three months, if we all re-affirm our commitment, we can
have a nicely polished BLAG 10k. I really just  want to maintain updates and
have the resources for people to update without a work around. It's easy for
us geeks, but for new users, I could only imagine. We need to bring all of
our skills and talent together and where we need help, we must ask, learn
and become better at who we are, what we now and what we are capable of.
Let's look at the Fedora roadmap, assess what tools we have to spin out a
distro, put it out there for individuals to test, get feedback and improve
upon it day by day.

Resources
-------------
Can you specify what we need. Hardware. Software. Knowledge wise!

What Free Software tools in BLAG can we currently use to stay organized?

Let's learn git(http://git.or.cz/), talking about what need to do with it
and and become familiar on using it without losing any work. For individuals
with experience, please post your knowledge.

I really like Dynebolic. I think any scripts from Jamoril and gNewSense are
important.
Freeeee. I used BLAG 70k on my EEE PC and the keyboard was definitely to
small. Any contributions that I can make there, I will put my energy towards

Servers
----------
Is there someway we can utilize Savannah?
Do we need to contribute for domain/hosting for blagblagblag.org

Comunication
-----------------
I think we need to utilze a number of systems for communication, but before
let's discuss our infrastructure. Who will be working on developing the iso?
Who is going to accept responsiblilty for the main site? I think some
communication for some groups should be live

A Quick note about blagblagblag.org and creative works
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Artists, writers, designers, please bring forth your ideas, designs, for the
site as well as recommendations on how we can maintain the site with a new
fresh look. I think your feedback would also be valuable to the design of
our upcoming distributions as well.

Timing
--------
I agree with you all the way as far as the amount of time we can all
contribute. I think some contributions may take more time according to the
type of work that is being done, but I think our to make BLAG as great as we
want it, we should contribute the respective time and energy that will make
it what we want it to be. I think managing what we our doing with our time
and keeping people updated is important as well.

Distros
--------
I think we should stick with Fedora X as a basis and add relevant packages
to make sure we have them available for non-desktop(servers, workstations,
etc) systems.
I think migrating from Fedora Core would be good but there may be issues
with the packages they have installed compared to what is available in BLAG.
I think we should not have people migrating from BLAG to Fedora at all.
There could be some dependency issues either way with certain packages
creating a broken system, versioning issues and repositiory issues as well.

People/Skill set
--------------------------
I want to join. First I want to provide my feedback when its relevant. I
would like to help organize and coordinate with everyone to ensure that we
are all on the same page. I also want to make sure that we are keeping our
packages in line with the guidelines setup by the FSF. I think we should
work with the other Free Software distributions, utilize the Free Software
directory and ensure that all the packages we are putting in as Free. There
is definitely a difference between what we had installed in BLAG as compared
to gNewSense 1.0 and 2.0(which I use along with BLAG 90k)and I think we need
to remain consistent as a family of Free Software distributions. Our goals
are the same, but people have preferences, but I think we want to generally
provide people with the same user interface that and tools they prefer. I
think there is opportunity to do so much and I would like to get my feet wet
wherever it is needed. I am comfortable testing and providing feedback.
Maybe in the future providing feedback to code for scripts and package
management.

Mailing Lists
---------------
No comment

Thanks for reading!

You say it best
BLAG 'em up
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