[PureOS] Let's stablize PureoS Green

[François Téchené]

On 20/03/2019 18:51, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Quoting François Téchené (2019-03-20 17:24:23)
>>
>>
>> On 20/03/2019 12:47, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>>> Quoting François Téchené (2019-03-20 12:09:38)
>>
>>>> So in term of priority regarding the customers experience, we have the
>>>> following :
>>>>
>>>>   1 - Stability
>>>>   2 - Usability
>>>>   3 - Features
>>>
>>> Let me provoke you...
>>>
>>> So until the feature and usability improvements are stable integrated 
>>> with the system, we should provide our users a system _without_ those 
>>> improvements?
>>>
>>
>> Well, that just represents priorities. It just means that Stability is
>> the top priority so we must make sure that Usability improvements don't
>> break Stability and that new features don't break Usability and
>> Stability. It doesn't have to be perfect, it is just a rule of thumbs
>> that we can implement the best we can.
>>
>>> I translate that to basing PureOS on Debian stable, not Debian testing, 
>>> even if that means missing out on GNOME 3.32 and libhandy.
>>>
>>> (except on the phone where Debian stable is "too stable" i.e. broken).
>>>
>>
>> No, what I mean is that we are not just a Debian mirror but we are
>> developing projects (GNOME) in order to build the experience we wish to
>> give to the Librem customers. This is not only for the phone but also
>> for the Laptops.
>>
>> It is what my workflow proposal is underlining. The fact of being a
>> mirror of Debian stable for everything we don't develop (the core
>> system) while adding, on top of that stable base, up to date versions of
>> what we put our effort on => GNOME
>>
>> So you should translate that to basing PureOS on Debian stable, then
>> porting, after making sure that new features don't break stability,
>> GNOME 3.32 to that stable base.
> 
> Let me try rephrase to something I can recognize as actionable:
> 
> I translate it to basing PureOS on Debian stable, not Debian testing, 
> missing out on GNOME 3.32 and libhandy at first but winning that back as 
> soon as we have the resources (manpower, infrastructure, etc.) for 
> maintaining the needed delta from Debian.
> 

OK, I misunderstood and it is clearer now.

> 
> NB: I am not convinced that above is best for us to do¹, only trying 
> here to align design team needs with PureOS team abilities.
> 
> Personally I believe strongly in aligning very closely with Debian - 
> differentiating from Debian only in *choices* but not code content.
> 
> I believe that by getting _closer_ to Debian, we can with _little_ 
> manpower manage _two_ flavors of PureOS:
> 
>   * PureOS 8.0 "green" - rolling release based on Debian testing
>   * PureOS 10.0 "blue" - a mature OS based on Debian stable
> 
> *both* flavors would follow exact same design principles.
>
> Laptops can choose either, phones can only use "green" for now.
> 

Having 2 flavours of PureOS would be fine for me if we were a Software
company making PureOS as a product. However, we are a computers
manufacturer and PureOS is a component of our product, which is the
Librem computer.

In my understanding, our big vision is to make computers that target the
human beings (period). A wide majority of the people don't care about
the OS component of a computer. Some of them don't even know what an OS
is. They just know that if they buy that particular computer, after they
switch it on, they will see that particular human interface.

Therefore, having to understand the difference and choosing between
green and blue, is impossible for a big part of human beings.

For the technical ones, PureOS green won't be more interesting than
Debian testing... or Debian Sid, or Parabola...

So we should focus on making a single distribution that is the OS
component of our computers and not planing on putting our effort on
supporting several flavors of PureOS for the long term.

I understand that it may be technically the only way for us to go, in
the short term, but it shouldn't be the long term plan.

> Debian will eventually support flatpak and ostree and whatever.  When 
> they do, we can consider embracing that.  If we need it sooner, then we 
> can step up and pay developers (in-house as we do with the phone team, 
> or by directly hiring Debian developers, or whatever) to speed up 
> development until mature enough that Debian adopts it.  It is to me 
> *not* an option for PureOS to embrace features Debian cannot adopt.
> 

I just give you my vision from a UX design perspective. Debian features
are not my area.

François

-- 
https://puri.sm

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