DSL-N :: DSL-N Development?
Does the closing of the DSL-N forum imply that DSL-N development is no longer taking place?
Jeff
DSL and DSL-N development is basically down to one person, me.
John owns both and is the final "decider" for both. I am only a very trusted developer. I cannot do two distributions and support two forums. The mutually agreeed upon initial decisions on which DSL-N were based can be debated and have, both in the now defunct dsl-n forums and between John and I, but cerain facts remain:
DSL forum averaged 25-50X times the community interest as DSL-N
DSL-N means trying to support new(er) hardware which I do not have.
The previously agreed upon work load assignments did not happen.
Not initially supporting both libraries in DSL-N so that it was backward compatible with DSL gave many users the impression that DSL-N was broken as existing DSL, Woody based, extensions would not always work as those older libaries were replaced with newer libaries to support Gtk2 applications.
Not initially supporting Debain and Apt system, this was to be forthcomming but did not happen. There was some effort by the community.
Quite honestly, I felt abandoned both in development and with the community. That, my friends, does not provide enough impetus to carry on.
I am in discussions with John on a roadmap for both DSL and DSL-N and when John might be able to return to help with development and support.
I still have much interest in DSL and wish to be allowed to carry on with my ideas. Just look at the change log for v3.1 and v3.2 and you will see I have not slowed down on ideas. But I feel there needs to be a merging or more modularizing so that multiple systems can be more readily supported and hopefully be embraced by the user community.
Doing a distribution is alot of hard work and usually a thankless job. Mostly you only hear the complaints; "it doesn't work" posts. A distribution is also very dependent on building a good user community. DSL has built such a community. I don't need to name names but it is clear those who help in the forums sharing and helping other users. Thanks to those, without you, there would be no DSL.
I realize that is a long way to answer your question, all I can say is stay tuned, it is being discussed.
Robert
DSL is at the top of the tree at Distrowatch, obviously because of Johns and Roberts and Crews, fantastic hard work, and obviously because of the MASSIVE amount of time that they give to the forum, amongst other things.
Please try and donate to DSL.
Hello everybody from a great admirer of DSL.
I hope this note is kosher.
original here.