Cloverleaf Dead: The Kids Pick Up Their Toys and Go Home

by Dietrich Schmitz

It began with Fuduntu's spring closure announcement, then its team opened a new project called FUSE, a spin of openSUSE.   And now comes another announcement by Shawn Dunn "...we are stopping development on Cloverleaf...":

"Due to many factors, the most important being lack of available manpower, we will be refactoring our efforts as part of the openSUSE project, whether in an official or non-official capacity. 

Initially, we had calculated on having 7-10 active developers available to work on Cloverleaf as an independent distribution, based on openSUSE. 

As things turned out, many of the developers we had factored into our plans had things pop up in daily life, whether personal or professional, and that has cut down on our ability to keep up with changes from the upstream and still develop Cloverleaf into a distribution that would have the same sort of polish that Fuduntu did.     Right now, we only have three active developers and it just isn’t possible to develop a satisfactory project with our current manpower."

That's too bad.  But perhaps the bar was set too high?  And to do anything with openSUSE would have meant developing a much deeper understanding of its internals which are quite broad and expansive.

I personally think that the brain trust of Fuduntu was largely a 'one man band'.  The take-away is that having any one individual in charge of development will always be risky, which left all of the Fuduntu community 'high and dry', unfortunately.

You should therefore ask yourself these questions:  Is my Distro being maintained by more than one programmer?, and, Will my Distro still be around in five years?

I happen to believe only a few Distributions will remain in five years and they will consist of Debian and derivatives, Ubuntu and derivatives, Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, Mageia, Arch Linux and Gentoo.

All others are cookie cutter Distros of sorts and have no real redeeming value beyond being mixes of the aforementioned base Distributions.  There's no innovation in that.  The programmers who maintain them will eventually leave their respective communities 'at the drop of a hat', kind of like what happened with Cloverleaf.    When they chose openSUSE following the initial Confused by FUSE episode, I suspected then the project wouldn't have longevity.  It turns out, I was right.

The Kids picked up their toys and went home.  So long.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Fuduntu: Kids and Community can be so cruel
• Lubuntu: One Honkin Fast Lean Mean Distro
• Cloverleaf to Become openSUSE Add-on [OStatic]

Read More

Thank You Cloverleaf for the Referrals, If Nothing Else.

by Dietrich Schmitz

I have to laugh.  In reviewing referral sources for the month of June, Cloverleaf-linux.org is quite active.

Thank you so much Cloverleaf Team!

If nothing else, my story, to which you so generously linked, does have merit. (Image credit: bubblews.com)

And, I think those who assess the level of mean-spirited behavior your clan displayed in the comment section confirms what I wrote.

Much of what goes on in many camps, like yours, is ego-driven, opportunistic, and shows little talent.  It is, yet, another cookie cutter Distro in the ever-growing Distrowatch sprawl.

My prediction is that you'll have one year of busy bee work and then everyone will grow tired and then say, "I don't want to play anymore.", and then that will be the end of it.

I give credit to only a few community Distro teams for having the intellectual capacity to drive and move Linux forward.  Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mageia, Gentoo and Arch really do the bulk of the technology grunt work, while the other rag tag teams ride on their coattails and take every opportunity to pat themselves on the back.

Otherwise, it's pure ego fulfillment and much intellectual masturbation prevails in the Linux ecosystem.

Don't like what I write?  Please.  By all means, put up another back-link to it and thank you very much in advance for the referrals and, of course, we mustn't forget, your usual vitriol.

Cheers!

--Dietrich

Related articles

• Debian 7: A So-So Distro Not Worth Switching For
• Your Career: Large Linux Project Involvement Key
• Linux Desktop: Little Innovation, Lots of Mediocrity
• Emmabuntus: Yet More Recycled Bits?
• The Fedora Project is the Best FOSS Community-Driven Linux Distribution

Read More

Your Career: Large Linux Project Involvement Key

by Dietrich Schmitz

When everyone pulls their own oar and to a beat the vessel moves along quite well does it not?

Every organization operates much like this on a certain level.

Without a cadence, timing, planning, and execution, the vessel won't move forward -- at least not efficiently.

It might even sit still and possibly move backwards.

When conflicting goals and interests arise, those oars no longer operate in unison.

What would it be like if suddenly, the majority of developers chose not to write for their respective Distribution and all came aboard one large vessel equipped with many oars?

Might then the ability to reach goals and objectives increase and be obtained more quickly?  Might the vessel be more powerful and move with greater speed?

How do you see yourself (the Developer) having an effect on the outcomes of Linux 'at large' in terms of achieving success?  What is your measure of success?

Would working on a single larger project be more meaningful if you knew the potential for your work's positive effect would be realized?

These are things which I have thought about as I survey the current Distribution sprawl.  So many are bound to recede into insignificance and I predict only a few, larger ones, will remain standing in five years.  I submit, as few as six Distros will still be around.  The rest of you, former hackers, wasting time on an obscure Distribution, will have grown jaded, tired and moved on leaving dead projects behind.  Those Distros will whither, dry up and simply die.  If this is true, then wouldn't making a decision today to redirect your talent to actually doing something which has a chance of being genuinely useful in five years be an important career decision?

I fear for young Developers who have invested their energy in smaller Distros and their projects without thinking about whether they are doing what's best for their own career path.

I've written that I feel there are too many Distros.  Qualitatively, only a few have merit, technology-wise, and the rest, like Cloverleaf, are merely clones with just some minor adaptation.  Sadly, this isn't progress.  It isn't innovating and for the young ambitious Developer, it is a waste of your precious skills, talent and time.  It won't advance your career.  Worse, if a project closes unexpectedly, you'll have potentially wasted many hours or years of your life, for naught.  Don't allow that to happen.  Don't say, "I wasted [x] years of my life."  That would be a shame.

Find a large project.  Move up the food chain and mingle with the Big Fish in the Big Pond and learn from truly experienced technology professionals.  Gain from advanced thinking that thrives in those environments and benefit from accelerated learning.

I don't care which, but move up the scale to the large Distros, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, Ubuntu, and get involved.  Get your foot in the door there however you can and stay there where one can truly make a difference and grow intellectually at the same time.

Don't Become a Big Fish in a Little Pond.  It won't help your career.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux: LSB Certification Means Stability, Lower Cost
• Fedora 19 Schrodinger's Cat Feature Review
• The Insidious Nature of Chromebooks
• Linux Desktop: Little Innovation, Lots of Mediocrity
• Linux Foundation's Linux Training Scholarship Program Opens for Applications

Read More

Mageia 3 Arrives: All Grown Up and Ready to Go Dancing

by Dietrich Schmitz

After a several project milestone delays, Mageia 3 was finally released today and featuring a new logo (two, shown right and left) with special thanks going out to its designer, Nicholas Duval.

"We still can’t believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we’ve been doing it for two and a half years.

For people who can’t wait,get it here; release notes are here. To upgrade from Mageia 2, see here.", writes +Trish Fraser in the Mageia blog announcement.

On a sad note, she writes:

"Before we get to the rest of the information: we dedicate this release to the memory of Eugeni Dodonov, our friend, our colleague and a great inspiration to those he left behind. We miss his brilliance, his courtesy and his dedication."

What's New?

Mageia 3 includes a raft of updated Applications and Packages as well as these new features:

• Updates to RPM (4.11) and urpmi, which has been given a good Mageia turnout and cleanup
• Kernel 3.8
• systemd 195
• GRUB is the default bootloader; GRUB2 is available to test.
• Revamped package groupings for installation and rpmdrake
• KDE 4.10.2
• GNOME 3.6.
• Xfce 4.10
• Libreoffice 4.0.3

Special Thanks

Trish adds not leastly special thanks reminding readers that Mageia would not be possible without the help of those in the community who selflessly gave of their time in fulfillment of the project, including the valued sponsors Gandi and Ielo:

"Our heartfelt thanks go to all the people who donated their time to make this release possible, and all the people who donated money allowing us to buy the servers that we use to build the distribution."

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Mageia 3: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
• Development Release: Mageia 3 RC
• Mageia 3 Beta 4 Live Images are Here
• Mageia 3 RC out now

Read More

Mageia 3: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

by Dietrich Schmitz

There hasn't been a time that I can recall over the past year that when I check the Distrowatch ranking that Mageia wasn't in the top 5.

It goes to show that this Distro has legs and has the essential attributes of a thorough-bred commercial Distribution.

That's because in spite of its community status, Mageia is a fork of commercial Distro Mandriva Linux.

Yet, while successful Mageia 2 was released in May 2012 and has a lot to offer, it seems that the Mageia community have been having their fair share of unforeseen project delays in keeping to milestones in their Mageia 3 release schedule.

Anticipating that the release was nearing, I decided to try their beta1 and beta2 releases.  Unfortunately, in each attempt to install, the X server crashed and I stopped there, thinking that perhaps waiting for a release candidate was in order.  It's to be expected in the beta phase for sure, so I paid no attention to it and moved on.

According to an announcement made on the Mageia Blog, the 'final release' date (May 3rd) is once again going to be postponed to May 18, 2013, for the third time.

Looking at their Systemd Features page indicates many unfulfilled items related to migration.  This being an accepted feature has, no doubt, been a major contributor to at least some of the project delays.  In the same Mageia blog post, volunteers are also encouraged to participate and contribute to the project work at hand.

I say, 'haste makes waste' and the Mageia Team will, in due course, work through these issues with care.  So please.  Be patient.

Good things come to those who wait. ;)

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Mageia 3 Delayed Due to Blocker Bugs
• Mageia 3 Release Candidate Has Experimental UEFI Support
• Mageia 3 RC out now

Read More