[DotGNU]Fitzix Free Software Audit project

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Hello Everyone,

        I'm sending this to both the dotgnu developers list and to
FreeDevelopers because I feel that this project may have implications for
both Free Developers and dotgnu.  First, a little history.  A year or so
ago, I was contemplating the concept of GNU/Linux fragmentation.  Of
course, the first thing that went through my head was "Nah - the GPL will 
protect
us!"  Over time, I began to wonder about the complexities of this.  Yes,
the GPL will protect us, but it's not automatic.  And, although the
distributions may have different interfaces, they are not fragmented
per-se.  That per-se part started to bug me a little bit.  Now, I'm not
raising the ghost of fragmentation since the concept is very specific and
also somewhat complex concerning the actions of forked projects and their
development in closed, open source, and free software projects are all
entirely different.  But, that's the point.  Projects will fork, and other
projects won't fork and that's OK.  But, to the end user, the whole thing
can seem very confusing.

        At this point you're probably asking yourself "Where's Barry going
with this???"  Well, at the time I was not as wise about the situation as
I am now.  I decided to go on a learning project adn develop a GNU/Linux
system from scratch.  I first used the "linuxfromscratch" method which is
very good, then I set out to build a strict GNU system starting with the
Linux kernel and moving backwards.  The idea was to find out how the
system worked from the ground up, and then try to create compatibility
layers for each distribution.  Ostensibly, you could make a Red Hat box
look like a debian box, or vice versa.  Now, obviously this is a complex
project.  It's a very large, very slow project.  I've been working on it
on and off.  In the midst, I've been working on finishing school at UConn
for my BA in sociology (All of my computer knowledge is homegrown over the
past 7 years) and working amidst other things.  So, I waited to go public
until I had more time.

        I was going to wait a little longer (I'll be done with College at
the end of the summer) but after hearing about dotgnu and then reading
some comments from David Sugar (Welcome aboard, btw) I've decided to go
forward with this posting.  In particular, I noticed David mention the
Free Software directory.

        To attain my goal, I realised that I needed something more than
just work on the distribution layers.  I needed to create a Free Software
auditing project.  This project would exist to audit packages according to
many different attributes.  As a sub-goal, the project would then build a
GNU OS distribution based on the linux kernel and hurd.  The project could
audit software issues and act as a sounding board concerning packages.
This Free Software audit/directory could act as a one-stop shopping area
for information concerning any GNU OS package.  The project could also
intercede and create patches for projects which fit the needs of other
projects.  For example, if fileutils needs a patch to deal with changes in
the glibc (something I experienced, If I recall correctly), then the
project can document the problem, create the patch, then send it to the
original developers/post it online.  For this to work, the auditing
project has to become a source of knowledge for the entire free software
development community.

        How does this pertain to us?

        I can think of no better project for freedevelopers.net and this
project would ostensibly meet the need for a free software directory.

        As far as dotgnu is concerned, issues concerning adaptation to
other distributions and development concerns can be funneled/maintained
into/by the audit project.  In otherwords, an extension to the package
audit project can be a distribution auditing project, charting package
availability in distributions.  Using this, we can determine the
likelyhood of problems concerning adding the patches to different
distributions.

        OK, I think I've mindlessly typed for long enough.  If you made it
this far, please comment.  All comments are welcome including "You IDIOT!"
style comments. :)  Thank you.

Barry Fitzgerald
address@hidden
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org