wiak wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 9:51 am
An odd thing about this so-named "Puppy Linux Discussion Forum" is that being a member of it indeed does not provide any of its members any actual control or say in what direction that distro named Puppy Linux
What gives one the impression that by the virtue of being a member of a forum gives the right to determine the direction of a product? If you are a member of Mozilla forum, does it give you the right to tell what direction Firefox should take? If you're member of microsoft forum, you've got the control to tell what feature goes in Windows or Office?
Also, since when was being a member of Puppy forum give the rights to determine the direction of Puppy Linux? It wasn''t when Barry was the leader, when murga-forum was the official forum. Barry listened to feedback, but the decision and the direction that Puppy Linux took was all his. He listened to some feedbacks and did as requested, in other times he went to the opposite direction. His distro, his way. Nothing has changed.
The truth is, everyone in this forum can suggest, request or recommend anything that they want. They can project their visions of future Puppy, and many have done so. But please be realistic. Different people wants different things (and sometimes opposites of one another). In addition, lest one forget, the developers who do the actual work, do it in their free time, out of their love for Puppy Linux, out of their love for fellow human beings. So they will consider all the suggestions and requests, and they will decide if or when they could or would do it. Nobody here can ever be in "actual control or say in what direction that distro named Puppy Linux", because it simply does not make sense to tell others what to do with their free time.
whether woof-CE users or stewards there pay any attention to what they read on our forum here is entirely up to them.
And what's different from the time of Barry? Barry didn't read every single post of thread in the forum as well, nor did he spent his time reading the forum everyday.
only these few who became, or through invitation or whatever become stewards of that git website
No, sorry, you get it wrong. They are the stewards of "Puppy Linux", not stewards of the git website.
I don't even think all woof-CE stewards have chosen to become members of this forum here - so I don't really know why this forum is considered official.
Because the "stewards" said so. How else do you think rockedge could use the puppylinux.com domain name? 
And also, there is no requirement that the "stewards" have to be a member of this forum or that forum.
What does 'official' mean in that situation where it's also true that some members who use this forum for their discussions and for feedback on their projects have no interest in woof-CE, and so on.
You are digressing. I didn't talk about the 'officialness' of the forum in my earlier post. I was talking about what "Puppy Linux" is.
But if you want to talk about the forum's usage for other projects, I would say this:, it is really up to the forum owner what topics he want to allow or disallow. If he wants, he can open a forum thread for discussing Ubuntu, Centos, TinyCore ... and nobody would object (I know I wouldn't). And if he does, it doesn't change anything about "Puppy Linux".
In that sense I suppose it is a waste of time any people here (those who are interested in using the distro Puppy Linux) discussing what should go into that distro or what its future should be or anything much about it really from this venue.
I wouldn't argue about this. If you think it is a waste of time (for you), then perhaps it is. You are entitled to your opinion.
I can only offer this: We have dimkr who is actively developing Puppy, and I know that he actively listens to feedback. If you think it is not good enough, and you think that every single stewards and everyone who works on Woof-CE have to be here before it is worthwhile to talk about Puppy Linux in a Puppy Linux forum, then, so be it. You're entitled to your opinion.
The place to discuss these matters would, I understand from above posts, be on woof-CE and anyone can raise 'issues' there if they know how to log in to github and use it.
That would work too, if one has specific things in mind, and if one knows how to use the tool. But you don't have to.
I've noted the point and said it before too: this site is not woof-CE. Some other distros featured in this forum's discussion threads, were worked on and created in line with the discussions that those who worked on them had here on the forum - nothing at all to do with the distro Puppy Linux sometimes;
I'm sorry but I have to disagree.
Every distro that is featured here has some relationship with Puppy Linux one way or another. Some of them are non-official Puppies. Some of them are direct descendant of Puppy. Some of them are forks of Puppy. Some of them are __inspired__ by Puppy.
Otherwise why would these distros hang in here, in this forum at all? This forum is not the site for leftover wannabe distros who have nowhere else to host their forums. To say would be an insult to rockedge who runs this forum, and would be an insult to those who creates these distros.
In my opinion, all distros featured in this forum, have connections to Puppy, directly or indirectly, fast or loose. These distros, or the author(s) of these distros, at one point in time the past, must have been inspired by Puppy or the work of Barry. That's what binds all these seemingly disparate distros in this forum together. Common ancestry, either in code, in methods, in idea, or in spirit. I think credit must be given where credit is due.
from any other XXX-CE site with some other team of appointed-stewards or any other, irrelevant really in opensource world, hierarchy of leadership and 'brand ownership'.
Well, tell that to Debian, then. They have "Debian maintainers" team, which in effect, is the "stewards" of the Debian project. Or perhaps tell that to Mozilla. They even have an official non-profit organisation to direct the development etc of their product.
Or how about this. What if somebody created a bunch of scripts, and call it FirstRib. Or somebody creates a distro and call it Weedog. It's just a name, right, so who cares? Anyone can name their scripts FirstRib, and anyone can name their distro Weedog. And then claim that theirs is the official one, with everything else being fake copies? Because 'brand' doesn't matter, right?
You run a business, so I thought you of all people would understand the importance of a "brand".
Truth is, anyone can read how Linux works, and spend enough time becoming capable enough to make their own distro(s), given sufficient time and interest to do that - lots of people have done it
Just like if given enough time, and interest to read physics book, one can become Einstein, or given enough time and interest to learn music, one can become Mozart or Beethoven?
there are no gods or kings in Linux really, no one that anyone actually needs or deserves worship or esteem.
There isn't, I agree with you on this, however, there are people who stand above others, and I would say that Barry is one of them. He's not perfect, he has his own share of flaws and quirks, but Puppy Linux and all of its derivatives in all forms - including this forum we're conversing on - wouldn't exist if it were not for him. For that, he has earned my utmost respect.
And I extend my respects to the "stewards" of Puppy Linux too, and all the Puppy developers (stewards or not) past present - without whom, we also wouldn't have this conversation as Puppy would have died long ago.
amethyst wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 10:46 am
From a legal point of view (my speciality) - has the Puppy Linux "brand" been officially registered at some registration office somewhere? If not.... I don't know what all this branding talk is about. Laughable...
Sure, you can laugh as loud as you want. The louder the better, if it really helps to make your day brighter, because, why not? 
But seriously, what alternative would you offer?
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Another historical tidbit for those who are interested but were not there when it happened.
Q: Why did the stewards decided that "Puppy Linux" can only be produced from Woof-CE?
A: When Barry stepped down, there were many questions and ideas about what Puppy Linux was (and apparently, still is). Everybody agreed that Puppy Linux was Barry and Barry was Puppy Linux. But now that Barry wasn't anymore, what would Puppy Linux be? There were as many opinions as the number of heads talking about it (or perhaps even more). Nobody could agree on what Puppy Linux was.
In the end the conclusion was this: Puppy Linux was Barry's creation. It was the embodiment of his ideas, his vision. Now, where else his idea and vision was embodied, other that Puppy Linux? That would be in the tool that he used to create Puppy: the Woof build system (previously known as the Puppy Unleashed), which was almost as old as Puppy itself. It was from this idea that the stewards came to the decision that anything that could be called as Puppy Linux (official or not) must be produced from Woof (or, it's successor, called Woof-CE - short for "Woof Community Edition", which meant that they invited everyone to contribute to the development of Puppy through Woof-CE).
That definition has served as well since then, and until now. Will it continue to serve well into the future? Who knows. But for now, it is what it is. And if you disagree, when make your voice heard. Argue with action, because words are cheap.
Just 'do'.
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@mikewalsh, what I was trying to say is that when Barry stepped down, there were __many__ talented people in the forum. Anyone of these people could have chosen to carry the torch, but didn't. They were all worried, of course, but none of them actually took the action to do anything to continue Puppy Linux. I don't blame them, they must have their own reasons of why they didn't.
In the end, there were only a handful of people who actually tried to carry on with Puppy, and these were the same people who were later was appointed by Barry himself as his successor. They didn't want this heavy responsibility, that's why they chose the model of "stewardship" rather than the heavier words like "Puppy Linux Committee" or "Puppy Linux Maintainer" etc. The whole idea is that the Puppy Linux now belongs to and will be maintained by the community (instead of only a bunch of them) - hence the name Woof-CE - and they were only the "stewards" to make sure that the project runs smoothly and that it continues on. So all the bad vibes thrown to these "stewards" are really unwarranted.
But of course, in practical side, you can't have everyone makes a distro and call it Puppy Linux. It simply does not make sense. Community development is well and good, so is community feedback, but if one looks at the "which browser is the best" thread, one will quickly see that it is impossible to please everyone, and somebody has to make the difficult decisions, otherwise there will be no Puppy Linux at all.
Somebody has to be responsible on the domain names. Somebody has to be responsible for the password to upload stuff to ibiblio. Somebody has to vet the code that goes into Woof-CE (which in turns goes embedded into every Puppy) so that it doesn't contain malware, or so that it doesn't have catastrophic failure that can wipe out a user's disk. Etc. You get the point. That's why we need to have some sort of leadership, as loose as it is. That's what the "stewards" for. I think a lot of people either don't see this aspect, or have lost sight of it, when they criticise the stewards (or the model of stewardship). One simply cannot run a sizable project without any leadership.
that 'free-rider' DD was put in dominant position in the sentence (even in the article)!!! You should complain.
).