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Michael_S
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Post subject: I am surprised the forums are not more active.
 Posted: 18.03.2013, 18:51
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Joined: 2010-09-25
Posts: 8
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Status: Offline
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Maybe it's a tribute to the skill of the developers - I have not had to come here often for help because everything has "just worked". I've been using Aptosid without problems for over two years.
Still, it would be nice to have more fans of the distribution to chit chat with. Not that I have anything important to say. 
But thanks to the developer team for making such a solid distribution. |
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DonKult
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Post subject: RE: I am surprised the forums are not more active.
Posted: 22.03.2013, 12:55
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Joined: 2010-09-02
Posts: 485
Status: Offline
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You are welcome 
chit chat usually doesn't work that great over a forum. It kinda works over IRC, but is usually discouraged in public/official channels to avoid distraction from the main topics (even though this means that there isn't anything to say at all for long periods of time). In private channels this works a lot better, usually as the audience is more limited and in some way known to you, so you are more certain that something you say isn't ripped out of context and used twenty years later to detain you (who knows what will be illegal in twenty years. Humanity has a tendency to take something utterly harmless and turn it into something horrible. As a totally random example: The german word "Dirne" used to have (also) the meaning "young girl (but old enough to marry)", nowadays its a pretty old-fashion word for "prostitute". Okay, granted, it took us a few hundred years to get there, but try reading old german texts with teenagers now – the original authors probably never thought about causing laughter with that word … – or take the innocent english word "gay" … used to be "nice", now its used as an insult … but where were I? A right …), the more driving issue is though that you don't have "instant feedback". If I say "hi" to someone at the bus-stop I either get a response immediately or I can bunch him in the face for not greeting back.
In a forum in this thread it took 4 days for someone to say something in return …
Beside this annoyances its a problem of topic. Debian is frozen, so there is not that much to talk about technical wise. The usual smalltalk topics ala weather do not really work and smalltalk-no-goes ala politics are to be avoided as usually (and don't really work either). So you end up with talk about not-talking like this post now. If this is strictly better than no post remains to be seen.
So lets see what we could talk about … ah (the right kind of politics I guess):
I recommend reading [email protected] currently as the "Debian Project Leader" elections are upcoming and campaigning is ongoing. Sometimes interesting to read, even if you are not entitled to vote as who knows if you can't influence Debian in other ways. I might act as a reseller if you are interested.
(yes, the linked mail is a joke of course – debian-curiosa is the [unfortunate low-traffic] chit-chat list so to speak used to send more or less funny stuff around as the other lists are usually strictly business) |
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MfG. DonKult
"I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones." ~ The Doctor
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Michael_S
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Post subject: RE: I am surprised the forums are not more active.
Posted: 04.04.2013, 01:39
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Joined: 2010-09-25
Posts: 8
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Status: Offline
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Thanks for the response. I think the sad fact is that success in the internet thrives on headlines. I really think a key factor in Ubuntu's popularity is their twice annual release schedule - Debian and its contributors deserve far more attention and adoption than they get, but the project grabs fewer headlines.
I understand your point about concern that statements made casually could come back to haunt us. As a personal ambition, I want to get involved in some kind of project focused on software to promote privacy. I like Google Mail and use it myself, but thanks to the US Patriot Act a government agent can read my mail at any time and Google is legally forbidden from informing me of the access.
Nice joke on the vote reselling. I had read about the Debian Project Leader elections. I like what I read from all three candidates, though if I had a vote I would need to do a lot more specific research before picking one.
Cheers,
Mike |
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DonKult
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Post subject: RE: I am surprised the forums are not more active.
Posted: 04.04.2013, 10:47
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Joined: 2010-09-02
Posts: 485
Status: Offline
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I don't think releasing twice a year is a big factor in the popularity – point in case: Fedora has the same shedule. A lot of people just stick with the LTS if they aren't into changing workflows every-so-often: Stuff as small as moving a button in the interface can confuse people A LOT. (It's a factor if we talk about the "nerds" like us who have upgraderities, but the general public couldn't care less as they only work with this thing and change means I have to invest time for practically no [immediately visible] gain). It is more that it is constantly in the press, not so much because of the new release, but because they did this or that. New Interface, New TV, New (Shopping-)Lenses, New Phone, New Table, New Displaymanager, … The publicity isn't necessarily good, but as the saying goes: there is no such thing as bad press coverage. "This isn't some nerd project, this is something awesome done by a millionaire who went to space!"
It will be interesting to see what will happen after the DPL voting is over as all of them said they want to work on attracting new contributors and making Debian "cooler". We will see; while I have read most of the campaigning discussions I have no real idea who I would vote for now (maybe also due to the fact that I was more focused on the content than on who said what). All I know is that replacing "zack" will be hard, but it's good that the stepped down now. Good luck future-DPL whoever you will be from the (after pressing "Submit") past!
Regarding mails, I tend to remind people that everyone can read them already, regardless of which provider you use as they are pushed from server to server until they reach the destination. You can't guarantee that non of these servers is going to read them like the postman could with postcards. In fact, all servers read them in an attempt to eliminate spam … If you don't want anyone to read your mails, you have to encrypt them end of the story.
That said, I use GMail myself and talk myself into thinking that most of my mails are public anyway (as they go to mailinglists) or are semi-public (as they are sent to bunch of people). Everything interesting about me can be extracted from those mails already, you don't need access to my "private" mails.
For that matter I am more concerted about my search-habits (moved to DuckDuckGo for most), reading habits (newsbeuter recently, but GoogleReader as backend so far until I find a satisfying replacement solution. That it is going away now is another "bonuspoint") and what/who I "like" (<- the reason you can't find me on any "social" network. If people are important enough for me, I usually get to know that they are married now without a message in a timeline. If not, I/they might not be as important as I/they think they/I are/am for eachother. I don't have 786 friends and I am fine with that. Or maybe I have, if I use the word as careless as everybody else). |
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MfG. DonKult
"I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones." ~ The Doctor
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Michael_S
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Post subject: RE: I am surprised the forums are not more active.
Posted: 24.07.2013, 23:41
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Joined: 2010-09-25
Posts: 8
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Status: Offline
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Sorry for the late response, I forgot to turn on notifications for the discussion. I still boot into Aptosid, I'm just stuck using Microsoft when the kids want to play their computer games.
Good point on Ubuntu's popularity versus Fedora. And you may be right that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and that helps Ubuntu.
I would think Debian would be popular with end users who don't care for change, because stable moves at a very slow pace. But I suspect Debian's drawback for the mainstream users (besides the fact that it isn't available pre-installed on PCs) is that it doesn't have the same fancy art themes for the desktops by default like Ubuntu, Mint, etc...
With mail, I think the secure solution would be a distributed, secure social network. Then in order to read your content an attacker has to hack your server or that of someone that is your friend (or in your circle, or whatever). That's roughly equivalent to using secure email, but I think the content sharing model is more convenient. You post things to your personal site and the people you have selected as friends can view the content and respond to you and to each other's contents at their leisure.
I use DuckDuckGo for searches too. I should really use Yacy everywhere ( http://www.yacy.net/en/ ) , but it's noticeably not as good as DuckDuckGo. |
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ikeinthai
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Post subject: thanks for duckduckgo.
Posted: 09.12.2013, 21:09
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Joined: 2010-09-22
Posts: 119
Location: bigannastybkk
Status: Offline
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i didn't know about this alternative to encrypted.google.com
seems like they have the right idea... but you can't really trust anybody, can you?
thanks again also to the devs for a beautiful operating system. Ike.
//edit by DonKult on 10. Dec 2013: removed double-posting (7 times). Just ignore the silly error message – the post gets though. I so hope the error message will be gone soon… *sign* |
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aptosid: magic in action, the point of the spear. bleedin pearls before swine? lets hope not. freesoftware/freedomsoftware=a chance at freedom. participants, engage your vehicle. . . avatar by zenren
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