an "Official Puppy Development" section

[sc0ttman]

Just a mild suggestion...

I think we should have a top level section called "Official Puppy Development". Then we can more clearly separate out the development stuff from the end user stuff.. and give Woof-CE much more prominance..

Inside "Official Puppy Development" section, I'd have sub sections like so:

- How to contribute (docs)
- Woof-CE
- Kernel-Kit
- Petbuild
- [..some other build tool]
- Puppy programs -> JWMDesk Manager
- Puppy programs -> Pmusic
- Puppy programs -> Pkg
- etc

We could then improve the "Advanced" section:

"Additional Software" should be a top level section on its own.. The other bits (Derivatives, Projects and Programming) would probably be better in the "Puppy Development" section.

We could also change the section heading above "Dog-House" (which just says "Forum") to "Other Distros".

.. also (separate issue) we can add sub sections to the "How To" section, for just end user stuff (not Dev stuff)

EDIT:

Also also... I think in the first section, the title should say simply "Official releases", and in terms of styling, each release should get a big heading on its own line - just like how "Beginners Help", "Users" (etc) are shown in the "House Training" section.

..though not sure what we do when the list grows in future - maybe only keep the latest of each official of each type (Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, etc), and a heading below them called "Older releases" ...

[sc0ttman]

What do people think?

(Nice job on the new forum btw)

[rockedge]

@sc0ttman

I like these ideas and will examine them closely. Wait for some more feed back but the organizational ideas makes sense to me.

Good to see you again with us here in the new digs.

[mikeslr]

I wish I was a good at picking horses. Speak of the devil, viewtopic.php?p=3116#p3116 and he arrives.

[taersh]

Speak of the devil, viewtopic.php?p=3116#p3116 and he arrives.

You are stealing my thoughts!

[sc0ttman]

Gonna be cheeky and bump this..

Is there any change of an explicitly separate section for "Development" stuff?

I don't care about the sub-sections, but it's a good section to have, to encourage dev-types to get
in there and talk to each other, without boring (and/or annoying) all the lovely end-users.

[rockedge]

I will set one up!

Here -> viewforum.php?f=147

Is this sufficient and usable? I am always concerned with the index page size.....if we add more main level forums the page length will grow significantly....I am keeping in mind the users of the forum that come through mobile devices with small and smaller screen sizes.

I feel like this should be tested out and avoid adding more main level forums.

[MochiMoppel]

I will set one up!
Here -> viewforum.php?f=147
Is this sufficient and usable?

Certainly usable but only if it's clear what is supposed to be posted in it.
I'm not a linguist nor am I an English native speaker, so "Development" or - as sc0ttman put it - "Development stuff" sounds a bit ambiguous to me. Programming already means "to develop programs", doesn't it

My interpretation would be "Programs in Development", similar to the structure found in the phpBB forum, where there is a "Extensions" forum and a "Extensions in Development" forum. This would separate it from the general questions now found in "Programming" and could serve as an incubator for software projects. It may also encourage devs to test and discuss their alpha and beta stuff before they post it in Additional Software ("software packages known to work" ).

[wiak]

This would separate it from the general questions now found in "Programming" and could serve as an incubator for software projects. It may also encourage devs to test and discuss their alpha and beta stuff before they post it in Additional Software ("software packages known to work" ).

Here we go again... Been several programs, 'known to work', previously posted in Programming section, presumably on the basis that they continue to be under development, but isn't that what maintenance is??? So most of the programs (meaning apps/utilities) we have posted in appropriate Additional software section have always been under maintenance/development and their development has always (for most of us) been discussed in the thread they have there. Oh well, so will I now I be moving, for example, weX, into Development section since gives it more exposure by far than simply as an app buried in the Additional Software -> Multimedia area. It would certainly be excessive having two threads for weX (and any of my other programs) so I guess I should delete or close the threads currently in Additional Software and move them all to Development section. 'Almost...' no-one used to put their Puppy/Dog utility programs into 'Programming section' before - for good reason that there already is a section for programs from forum members (i.e. Additional Software...) and programming, sensibly enough to me, was about programming (e.g. usage/tips re gtkdialog, yad, shell scripting). So I gather 'Development' will be for not ready to publish programs...(?) - well, they are published if they are anywhere... so is it for programs not yet at the final stage their author would like - all my programs tend to be like that; indeed, when I wonder is a program ever 'finished' or 'perfect'? Or what seems to me to be more reasonable: for major core-system developments, such indeed as sc0ttman's 'package' facility (which is way more than any utility/app creation and likely to need major ongoing dev effort) and gyro's various Puppy initrd alternatives (e.g. overlayfs as well as aufs variants)??? But... for general app/utils that are destined for Additional Software - seems to me that's where they always should be i.e. "Additional Software" (all app/utils undergo development, gradually, hopefully becoming more polished or functional but generally more or less useful/usable on first actual publication).

So, yes, it would be good that a new section (Development) rather than 'Programming' has its purpose/intended-use well explained particularly if some might be inclined to use it as an alternative to using Additional Software subsections. There certainly seems to be no point keeping our utility/apps in two places. But if some will be put into Development section then I'll move mine too since definitely more likely to get more feedback there.

But there is a major danger to published apps/utilities contributions being put into a Development section - the possibility that they will be published there without a usage license... If that is to occur, therefore, I would ask that it is made mandatory that programs published anywhere on the forum, no matter their author's opinion regarding their stage of development, have a license assigned to them so potential users are correctly informed as to whether such development code is open-source or copyright their author only. It would be nice if the forum could assign license to any such non-licensed development, but legally only the author can assign license so programs published without including any license statement should be refused/deleted until the author is ready to notify users of the code's license conditions.

Personally, I find it utterly objectionable that some programs/utilities developed on the forum (particularly old Murga forum) had no license statements, and when I've asked for permission to include in WeeDogLinux, for example, I've basically been told 'no' by the author claiming the well known to be 'working' app is not ready/available for wider distribution - certainly meaning that it is not open-source licensed. In such cases, it should be insisted that their author makes that non-open-source-license nature published and clear to every potential user. The alternative is that everyone stops publishing their contributions as open-source licensed (which is fine, but only if made clear to everyone via non-open-source license type). Of course if published with most any open-source license the work can be forked, but not making open-source prevents others forking own customised versions (which would otherwise be a reasonable idea when original version not being made available for 'wider distribution').

wiak

[bigpup]

I do not see a need for this.
Puppy Projects section covers this.
Maybe add some more specific subsections to it.

The idea of working on a piece of software someplace and latter posting the finished product under additional software,
never worked that well in the old forum.
Nothing wrong with posting an alpha version of a program in Additional Software and improving it as it develops.

I have never seen software specifically made for Puppy be 100% on first release.

Microsoft releases a new version of Windows all the time that is still alpha quality!

About software licensing.

I suggest you put a simple statement in the forum Terms.
Anything posted on this forum will be considered released under the terms of General Public License GPLv3.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.htm
If you post it. You agree it is released under General Public License GPLv3.

[rockedge]

I suggest you put a simple statement in the forum Terms.
Anything posted on this forum will be considered released under the terms of General Public License GPLv3.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.htm
If you post it. You agree it is released under General Public License GPLv3.

I am leaning towards this. wiak has some good points and licensing and getting a grip on keeping us "legal" is something we should strive for. Any further thoughts are welcome, for us to begin weighing the facts of this matter to prevent any later SNAFU's

Code: Select all

sna·fu
/snaˈfo͞o/
Learn to pronounce
informal•North American
noun
noun: snafu; plural noun: snafus

    a confused or chaotic state; a mess.
    "an enormous amount of my time was devoted to untangling snafus"

adjective
adjective: snafu

    in utter confusion or chaos.
    "our refrigeration plant is snafu"

verb
verb: snafu; 3rd person present: snafus; past tense: snafued; past participle: snafued; gerund or present participle: snafuing

    throw (a situation) into chaos.
    "you ignored his orders and snafued everything"

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge :-

I'll go along with that suggestion. GPLv3 is, from what I can glean, one of the 'better' variations-on-a-theme. It wouldn't be at all a bad idea to make this a standard term of the forum's use; so long as everyone agrees, and doesn't object, it should keep us 'above board'. Gets my vote.

Just my tuppence-worth!


Mike.

[sc0ttman]

OK, to be clear.. If you re-read my first post, I was taking about a "Puppy Development" section.. not just a "Development" section..

So maybe this is a better name for what I'm hoping to achieve: "Official Puppy Development"

It would be where Puppy Linux itself is developed - it's build tools, and core system tools and packages.

(The "Additional Software" section has always been for software not already in Puppy linux, btw, not always "developed" by people - often cobbled together, re-downloaded/re-packaged...)


...Anyway.. This new section would exist with the intention of simply keeping most Puppy Linux development within one section.

The benefits (I hope) would be:

Then we can more clearly separate out the development stuff from the end user stuff - separate sections for done/old/finished releases, and ongoing work of new official stuff..

Inside "Official Puppy Development" section, I'd have sub sections like so:

- Docs - How to contribute to Puppy Linux development
- Woof-CE - just updates and downloads, links, comments, about latest Woof-CE activity
- Petbuild - add any build scripts we make for compiling software here
- Kernel - latest kernels compiled, tools for building them
- Puppy programs - built-in system tools, scripts, programs, important for running & using Puppy

(I'd move Woof-CE out of Puppy Projects, and into Official Puppy Development)

We can have the "Projects" and "Programming" where they are now, and they can keep their purpose .. I'd simply like a "Official Puppy Development" section underneath those, at the top level..


.. again, it's not a strict list, but an idea..

[sc0ttman]

I do not see a need for this.
Puppy Projects section covers this.
Maybe add some more specific subsections to it.

Lets PLEASE not hide our official apps, links, dev tools, etc away, further down into little sub categories than random, non-official PETs, projects and god knows what else.

Any official anything sections should start at top level.

Let's think about new users who don't already know all the quirky names and tools, users and so on - and where to find them..

[wiak]

Actually, I generally agreed on the reasonableness of sc0ttman's first post suggestion:

so is it for programs not yet at the final stage their author would like - all my programs tend to be like that; indeed, when I wonder is a program ever 'finished' or 'perfect'? Or what seems to me to be more reasonable: for major core-system developments, such indeed as sc0ttman's 'package' facility (which is way more than any utility/app creation and likely to need major ongoing dev effort) and gyro's various Puppy initrd alternatives (e.g. overlayfs as well as aufs variants)???

Though, per rockedge's comment, there certainly is an issue of first page becoming too complicated particularly for mobile device access if too many first layer sections.

However, it was the 'interpreted understanding' and resultant usage proposed by Mochimoppel that I particularly objected to (despite the fact that I am also not a fan of 'Additional Software' section habit of burying Puppyist-created utils in hard to discover subsections), but with so much additional software to cater for, I do not see any fair alternative to that effect (like I said, 'everyone' could move their apps into 'Development' to provide better app exposure, but that would be a mess...):

I'm not a linguist nor am I an English native speaker, so "Development" or - as sc0ttman put it - "Development stuff" sounds a bit ambiguous to me. Programming already means "to develop programs", doesn't it

My interpretation would be "Programs in Development", similar to the structure found in the phpBB forum, where there is a "Extensions" forum and a "Extensions in Development" forum. This would separate it from the general questions now found in "Programming" and could serve as an incubator for software projects. It may also encourage devs to test and discuss their alpha and beta stuff before they post it in Additional Software ("software packages known to work" ).

However, I do think sc0ttman has a very good and valid point and request regarding some section for grouping together development work concerned with Puppy system (rather than app/utils) development - such as his 'package' system app.

Perhaps, any and all apps/utils specially designed by forum users for Pups (and/or forum supported Dogs) should indeed not have to be buried inside Additional Software section. i.e. Perhaps only non-forum designed apps/utils should be required put into 'Additional Software' since externally produced - I'm not sure about specially packaged external apps (such as portable browsers), but I'd tend to say anything basically external should go to 'Additional Software' and only new programs (e.g. gtkdialog/yad-based) should be made more visible to all forum members. Indeed new apps/utils deserve better exposure since they are being specially created by programmers as members of this forum; so it is not really that I disagree with the overall wish of MochiMoppel - aside from licensing issue I outlined. Problem remains with there only being limited forum main section space though.

[bigpup]

I totally do not understand the thinking that putting any kind of program, no matter how it is produced or where it comes from, should not be placed in Additional Software section of the forum
It is a software program.
Why does who coded it make it any different from any other coded program?

Good example:
Different Puppy installer programs coded by Puppy software developers.
Frugalpup
Yapi
Lick
PKG

All posted in Additional Software->System.
Only one specific place in the forum you can find all of them.

I agree that work on some code could be done in another location in the forum.
We did it developing Yapi.
However, Yapi started out as a question/challenge posted in the cutting edge section of the old forum.
It did not start out as some posted code.
People liked the idea and started offering code that could do what was needed.
31 pages latter, we had the program Yapi.
The release version was posted in Additional Software->System.
It got even more tweaking there.

This forum already has Puppy Projects section with subsection Cutting edge.

Do we really need more?

[sc0ttman]

Why does who coded it make it any different from any other coded program?

It's not who coded it ... But WHAT has been coded..

Is it an additional, option piece of software, NOT required to run or build Puppy Linux?
Or an essential component inside Puppy? Or a tool used to build Puppy?

I really think we should avoid replicating the downsides of the old forum just cos we, the regulars, know where things "used to be"..

We have the official releases as a top-level, main section.. That's good.

The development of the next official Puppy should also have its own top section...

Otherwise we'll have new users arriving, and not having a clue how to contribute to Puppy development.. What is part of official development, what is not..

And semantically, it makes no sense at all to have unofficial/random/vague things like "Projects" as a top-level section, while our official dev stuff (the tools we use to build puppy, and all it's in-built programs) are scattered around in various places..

Even worse, we currently have "EasyOS", "FatDog" and "DebianDog" (etc, not even puppies!) on the top level, with a section of their own - bigger than the official puppy releases!!

If the forum were a document, its heading structure would be all over the place - it would have "asides" under under major headings, and the important stuff tucked away!

How is a new user, who never used the old forum supposed to know what is ongoing work on "puppy itself", and what is not?

For example:

Forum -> Official Puppy Development -> WoofCE
Forum -> Official Puppy Development -> Kernel-Kit
Forum -> Official Puppy Development -> Puppy Programs -> Pmusic
Forum -> Official Puppy Development -> Puppy Programs -> Pkg

(etc)

is so much better, and more correct than

Forum -> Puppy projects -> WoofCE
Forum -> Additional PETs and Software -> Multimedia -> Pmusic
Forum -> Puppy Projects -> Cutting Edge -> Pkg

..we should move all the official, in-built, included-in-puppy-by-default programs out of "Additional Software"..

And I don't know why the "Programming" section exists outside of a "User Help" section, cos that is what it is ... nothing to do with development.. Often just random programming questions..

[sc0ttman]

I totally do not understand the thinking that putting any kind of program, no matter how it is produced or where it comes from, should not be placed in Additional Software section of the forum

Lol .. should Woof-CE be in there too? Hidden away along side unimportant, optional, non essential additional PETs randomly made by beginners that no one needs? ....This makes helping out with Puppy itself much harder for new users, let alone new devs!!

This forum already has Puppy Projects section with subsection Cutting edge.

Cutting edge is a terribly named sub-section... I would get rid of it - just stick anything that might have gone there in "Puppy Projects".

I do not see a need for this.
Puppy Projects section covers this.
Maybe add some more specific subsections to it.

The very fact you are confusing (and combining) additional, optional "user contributed" software (often not even packages) with the official tooling, packages and programs required to build a new Puppy Linux itself, is partly BECAUSE we don't clearly define the difference on our forums!

I'll say it again, for the benefit of everyone who WASN'T a regular user of the old forum:

Lets PLEASE not hide our official apps, links, dev tools, etc away, further down into little sub categories than random, non-official PETs, projects and god knows what else.

Any official anything sections should start at top level.

[sc0ttman]

As a side note, the "Additional Software" section has always been crap - people offering PETs and SFS files that only work in some pups, not categorised by the pups they work in!! ..and worse - Google Drive links, Mega.nz, etc, etc.

Example:

Additional Software -> Multimedia -> Kodi

^ likely just a cobbled together PET or SFS, only works in some pups, maybe made for one specific older version, maybe zero benefit over installing from repos, probably poorly named (doesn't follow package naming conventions for the Pup it was built on), probably no deps listed in pet.specs (if it's a PET), etc, etc...

- Firstly, this section encourages users to NOT use the packages in the repos...
- Secondly, this encourages users NOT to use the package manager for making packages..
- Thirdly, it encourages uses to share packages in a very s**** way (see first paragraph).
- Fourth, it encourages people to share random downloads, not just packages (which can be installed, deps resolved, etc..)
- Lastly, it discourages people from making their own repos and hosting their packages there.


Maybe moderators of the "Additional Software" section should be pro-active in renaming threads from:

Additional Software -> Multimedia -> Kodi
Additional Software -> Multimedia -> "Some Gtkdialog script"

to:

Additional Software -> Multimedia -> [TahrPup] Kodi
Additional Software -> Multimedia -> [All pups] "Some Gtkdialog script"

etc

-------------------------------

Another note - about how we share software more generally...

I have already posted on this forum about a much better way to share "user contributed" packages...

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=1170

1. make a package of the software
2. put the package (and any deps not in the "built-in" repos) in a repo
3. make the repo installable, not just the package
4. share the repo url, so others can install your repo, in their puppy

The benefits of this are many:

- it's all clear which puppy the packages are for
- there are no good docs on forum on good vs bad packaging - use Pkg (etc) to do it for you
- you offer PETs (or SFS) on a per-Puppy basis (for specific version of Puppy)
- you can share 1 command to let other users download and install all your packages
- they can get the updated list of your packages by running 1 command locally (can do it in a script in ~/Startup every boot)
- you DONT encourage random file uploads/downloads on the forum, hard to find, badly categorised, etc, etc

-------------------------------

While I'm here ..

I personally would prefer the "Package collections & repositories" to be above "Additional Software", for the latter to be phased out in favour of the former... not a biggie...

But....

In a top-level "Package collections & repositories" section, we'd encourage users (with good docs at the top, as stickies) to share their custom made packages through their own, home-made repos..

We'd aim for each thread in "Package collections & repositories" to be the "homepage" of each user contributed ("contrib") repo on offer:

Package collections & repositories -> puppy-common-sc0ttman-scripts
Package collections & repositories -> puppy-fossa64-sc0ttman-games
Package collections & repositories -> puppy-fossa64-sc0ttman-webdev
Package collections & repositories -> puppy-fossa64-bigpup
Package collections & repositories -> puppy-wary-jrb-servers

Where the main post of each thread has a "repo summary": a repo URL, description (etc), and package list (with filesiezes and md5 hashes) & description.
...etc..

This "repo summary" could easily be auto-generated by `pkg dir2repo <dirname>`, and then added to your clipboard, ready to be pasted into your thread!

[bigpup]

Welcome to Linux software!

[rockedge]

Okay.....now I turned the key and missiles away! I have set up a phpBB puppy-test dev platform to test out different organization.
This is a machine that I have total control of (it let's me believe that anyway) and I do not always have it exposed to the Internet
It's here http://puppylinux-test.dnsalias.org

What I NOW REQUIRE is an OUTLINE....@sc0ttman , @wiak and @bigpup please submit an outline I can follow and we can try it out! Or see below:

Also PM me if you need to be full admin and jump in and set it up via the control panels. I haven't really got the SMTP mail going for this version so I would manually set up the users on request.

We can completely be worry free in our design endeavors since this is a Puppy Linux server and I can just roll back the save folder in case we manage to break,blow up or generally reek havoc.

Matter of fact is I can set up 3 or 4 different instances of the same thing and each can build a forum organization design and we can compare that way. And each can take their own version set it up and we can test run them side by side

[sc0ttman]

I've attached my proposed layout as a code comment..

The main points:

- 8 top level sections
- main releases now only 1 deep (bigger on page, listed one per-line)
- all legacy pups 2 deep, (smaller on page, listed inline, comma-separated)
- "Programming" moved into help section
- Hardware section added to help
- new "official puppy development" section
- "Bug reports" moved into official puppy development section (from help)
- additional software section as before, but posts start with "[wary] .." or "[dpupstretch32]" .. etc
- "Other Puppy software": could be called "Other puppy stuff"... note it has no cutting edge section!
- Non-puppy distros all in one group

NOTE:

- The "Additional software" section in the below layout is top-level - its categories would get listed one-per-line! .. This may be too much ... To avoid this (and have "Additional Software" shown as it is now, inline with small, comma-separated sub-categories) you could simply put "Additional Software" and "Other Puppy Software" under a top level "Puppy Software" category
- the "Official Puppy Development" section could be listed further down, wherever is least confusing to people.

Code: Select all

Proposed layout:

SITE HEADER


Official Releases            # the blue heading that currently just reads "FORUM"
----------------------
Bionic64                        # each thread has a release annoucement as a "main post"
DPupStretch32
Fossapup64
LxPupSc
Raspbian Buster
Slacko
ScPup
Tahr
Xenial
Legacy -> oldpup1
Legacy -> oldpup2



User Help                     # the blue heading that currently reads "HOUSE TRAINING"
----------------------
Beginners
Howtos, Guides & Tutorials
General help and support
Hardware
Programming



Official Puppy Development        # a new blue heading
----------------------
Contributing to Puppy Linux (docs)      # how to use woof-ce, github, make packages, etc
Bug Reports                             # (moved from User Help!)
Woof-CE                                 # discuss woof-ce features, fixes, activity on github
Petbuild                                # discuss petbuild features, build scripts, fixes, activity on github
Kernel-kit                              # discuss kernel-kit features, fixes, activity on github
Puppy programs -> Pmusic                # main pmusic thread, annoucements, bug reports, etc
Puppy programs -> Pkg                   # main pkg thread, annoucements, bug reports, etc
Puppy programs -> Rox-Filer             # ...etc


Additional Software
----------------------
AppImages
Petbuilds                                                           # NEW:  users can add their buildscripts here, maybe?
Snaps and Flatpaks
Package Collections/Repositories -> puppy-fossa64-sc0ttman-games    # (repo made by Pkg)
Package Collections/Repositories -> puppy-fossa64-sc0ttman-webdev   # (repo made by Pkg)
Package Collections/Repositories -> ...
Browsers and Internet -> [Tahr] Firefox 3.x.x                       # note the titles of posts are prefixed with puppy ver
Browsers and Internet -> [DpupStretch] Firefox 3.x.x                # note the titles of posts are prefixed with puppy ver
Browsers and Internet -> [DpupStretch] Vivaldi SFS                       # note the titles of posts are prefixed with puppy ver
Browsers and Internet -> ...
Desktop
Design and dev tools (new ... IDEs, UI design, GUI design tools, etc)
Drivers
Educational
Engineering/Science/Simulation
Eye Candy -> GTK themes -> ...
Eye Candy -> JWM themes -> ...
Eye Candy -> wallpapers -> ...
Filesystem
Games
Graphics
Kernels
Multimedia
Office/Business
REQUESTS
Security/Privacy
System
Utilities
Virtualization/WINE


Other Puppy Software
----------------------
Puppy derivatives -> puplet1
Puppy derivatives -> puplet2
Puppy projects    -> "newCoolScript"
Puppy projects    -> "my cool thing"
Puppy projects    -> "making puppy support arabic better"
Puppy projects    -> ...


Non-Puppy Distros            # only distros we care about or play/mix with a lot
----------------------
EasyOS -> EasyOS v3.4
EasyOS -> EasyOS v3.5
Fatdog64 -> Fatdog64 v5
Fatdog64 -> Fatdog64 v6
CorePup
Debian Dogs -> "My DebianDog1"
Debian Dogs -> "My DebianDog2"
Ubuntu Dogs -> ...
WeeDog


Off-topic
-----------------------
Security,
Truly off-topic conversations
Forum Organization & Structure Council
Other Distros


Other languages
----------------------
French
Japanese
...

... I would also do the following:

- away from the homepage, where appropriate or needed, and if phpbb supports it (prob does), I'd add a sticky "headers" to the top of each sections page, above the threads, saying what the section is intended for


---

EDIT:

Matter of fact is I can set up 3 or 4 different instances of the same thing and each can build a forum organization design and we can compare that way. And each can take their own version set it up and we can test run them side by side

Happy to give this a go if you PM me some login details... Thanks! (whatever works best for you, obvs... If my list above sufficient info, then all good, hack away..)


EDIT3: Added a decent screenshot:

Code: Select all

https://i.imgur.com/pvWRdFn.png

EDIT4 :

in the screenshot i forgot to put "Bug reports" just above "Woof-CE" ... And the "Puppy Projects" and "Other Puppy software" are duplicates .. I meant to include only one of them... forgot to choose one.. I also forgot to correctly title the "Other Distros" section, which I left as "FORUM"

[wiak]

What I NOW REQUIRE is an OUTLINE....@sc0ttman , @wiak and @bigpup please submit an outline I can follow and we can try it out! Or see below:
...
Matter of fact is I can set up 3 or 4 different instances of the same thing and each can build a forum organization design and we can compare that way. And each can take their own version set it up and we can test run them side by side

Hmmm. As you know, wrong season for me rockedge. Rarely switching my computer on just now and anyway, this discussion re Forum organisation/structure has been going on for so long already. Whilst I'm not per se against most of sc0ttman's proposals, it's not easy to suddenly redraft a forum structure and impossible probably to get active meaningful consent from forum members. I won't therefore be offering up any full new proposal myself - better I think to just debate sc0ttman's proposal looking for reasonable member-agreed variations/adjustments.

At least since 2013 when the DebianDogs came along, and proved more than a little bit successful, there has been tension on the forum regarding mixing of non-Puppy distributions with Puppy ones. Seven years is a long time in distribution development. I quickly checked out 'number of views' as a rough statistic (meaningful or not) of interest (Mainline Pups, Dogs) and noted the current ranking for following threads (definitely not complete so apologies to creators of all missed out distros, but posting just to get general feel of main forum interest):

Fossapup64 9670 views
BusterDog 3831 views
FossaDog 3632 views
TazPuppy 5.0 2567 views (under Puppy Projects section...)
BionicPup64 2457 views
BusterPup8 by radky 2008 views
DpupBuster CE 64 and 32 bit by josejp2424 1814 views (under Puppy Projects section)
FatDog64-811 Final 1327 views
LXPupSc64 1093 views
ScPup32 1060 views
eSlacko(64) 999 views
Puli 32/64 by gjuhasz
EasyOS 2.4.1 694 views

FossaPup64 confusingly also has entry under Puppy Projects with 18222 views (seems distros get more views if listed under more exposed/read Puppy Projects section).

Quite a share of interest in the long-established Debian and Ubuntu Dogs, according to these thread view stats. NOTE, by the way, sc0ttman, WEEDOGLINUX is not related or derived in any way to DebianDogs or UbuntuDogs so cannot be classed as such (in fact current main/most-active WDL release used Arch64 for its repos), and there is no such distro as WeePup as far as I know).

Some reasonably argue that Puppy forum should be for Puppy distro only and sc0ttman's proposal seems to only very reluctantly give space to any Dogs, though I gather at least from fredx181's past comments that he is fine with limited space on what is indeed Puppy forum. However, I would suggest that Puppy forum would be a less rich space were it not from the many contributions shared over to Puppy from Dog developers and there seems to be little disagreement that at least FatDog and EasyOS are historically related enough to Puppy that it would be strange to boot them out entirely (and they do have their following on this forum also as the stats above show). TazPuppy views surprised me - but well done mistfire! (I do however suspect that its placement under Puppy Projects helps it being noticed (rather than as just a Pup derivative or some kind of mongrel Dog).

As for my baby and daily desktop - WeeDogLinux - has its own forum (as does EasyOS). Currently not much activity there at all (not by me either - I absolutely use WDL Arch64 all the time, but nothing to add to it at the moment - though plenty of plans for after summer here). In general I don't care whether WDL gets any forum exposure at all (here or on its own forum) - I'm happy not to share it at all actually since less work for me! But my wife uses it for her business needs (by choice, by the way - I asked her to either use her previous Windows 10 or BionicDog64 back then, but she likes WDL Arch64 so why argue..?... and my two sons use it all the time and are becoming pretty good programmers) so it is not likely to fade away.

Were it not for the Dogs intrusion onto the forum, I'd actually tend to support most of sc0ttman's proposal because I have also long advocated that the package manager is the core driver for the form a distribution takes, and long before sc0ttman developed 'package' or Pkg or whatever it is called I often stated that what Puppy needed was a good dependencies resolving commandline driven package manager. And for such a package manager to work most efficiently and effectively there needs to be tight control of how packages get added to the distribution (hence Debian with its dpkg database and the importance not to mix and match packages in such a way that can become corrupted). So all these non-standard mechanisms used for providing sfs or portable or pet packages (minus required accurate dependencies listings) are a major menace to Puppy future development (sorry guys - such work is understandable and useful stopgap just now, but long term would be better to have more reproducable and standard package-creation methodology).

wiak

[sc0ttman]

Just for the record - the screenshot has some mistakes... The "Other Puppy Software" section could be removed... and the actual list of "non-puppy" distros in my screenshot is just example/half-baked - I didn't try to list them all or organise them properly ..

The main point is that each one is inside the same section, (under a "OTHER DISTROS" heading), and that each one is on the homepage, with its subforums listed on homepage too

I feel like that is actually quite generous, given they are not actually Puppies... yet it still clearly marks them all in a group as "not puppy per se"

Rather than a "OTHER DISTROS" heading, maybe we could call it "RELATED DISTROS" ?


...and just to be clear everyone, I'm MORE than happy for those who totally disagree to list of the ways they hate these ideas.. and why..

And I do feel sharing screenshots gives us something concrete to discuss, if you can't make a demo site (as rockedge mentioned above)..

[bigpup]

FossaPup64 confusingly also has entry under Puppy Projects with 18222 views (seems distros get more views if listed under more exposed/read Puppy Projects section).

Already confused by making a topic for development of a Puppy version in Puppy Projects section.
When it is released as final version.
Now have it posted in the Mainline Puppy Linux Distros section.

The only thing I want considered is my post about having a statement in the forums terms.

Anything posted on this forum will be considered released under the terms of General Public License GPLv3.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.htm
If you post it.
You agree it is released under General Public License GPLv3.

[rockedge]

@bigpup

Look at the bottom of the Quick links menu and at the footer nav bar for "Licenses"

Any suggestion for better wording?

licenses

[wiak]

@bigpup

Look at the bottom of the Quick links menu and at the footer nav bar for "Licenses"

Any suggestion for better wording?

licenses

Hi rockedge,

Much though I've been pressing for all code published on this forum to be given a clear license, the statement surely cannot assign GPLv3 to ALL code posted on this forum. If the code already has an assigned license (stated as commercial or otherwise), I don't think this forum can itself reassign a different license... My concern is for code published without any license statement at all - then it seems reasonable for the forum to say any such code published here will be understood to be GPLv3 (though I'm not sure of the legal right of forum assigned license, but does seem reasonable). So I'd suggest modifying the wording re: license to:

Anything posted on this forum with no license indicated will be considered released under the terms of General Public License GPLv3.

wiak

[rockedge]

Would this modification sound strange or deflect the meaning?

Code posted on this forum with no license indicated will be considered released under the terms of General Public License GPLv3.

[bigpup]

We need a lawyer to come by that knows how it needs to be stated.
Seems clear to me, but not sure how those words translate to other languages.

[user1111]

We need a lawyer to come by that knows how it needs to be stated.
Seems clear to me, but not sure how those words translate to other languages.

Or laws! Internet jurisdiction laws seems increasingly tilted towards being tied to the laws of where a site was accessed from.

Better IMO for rockedge to simply throw the onus out to each poster.

When posting you agree that the administrators/moderators of this forum have the right to modify, remove, edit or close any topic, posting, signature, account, or profile data at any time that they see fit. Any source code published will be assumed to have been made freely available, be free to be redistributed and/or modified - unless expressly indicated otherwise by the poster.