[PATCH] Install customization packages left for us by a USB key.

[Michael Stone]

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 12:04:29PM -0500, C. Scott Ananian wrote:

> I asked for specific use cases.

I apologize if I was inadequately specific in my previous email. As I
alluded to before, three specific groups who I am confident would
benefit from the ability to install RPMs via a USB-based customization
process include:

  a) Walter and the teachers he's training, who would like an easy way
  to install gnuchess, since Gcompris doesn't yet bundle it.

  b) Individuals with large numbers of unreliably-networked laptops who
  would like to install carefully chosen and tested software on them
  en-masse, e.g. Bryan Berry and OLE Nepal.

  c) Individuals like me (and you?) who want a convenient way to install
  a fixed software overlay on top of whatever recent build they are
  presented with.

> I'm not interested in supporting risky things that are unnecessary but
> "might be nice somehow".  

First a disclaimer - I'm going to ask what may be a couple of dumb
questions because I really want to better understand your position.

My question is simply: were you speaking on behalf of the entire OLPC
development community, the OLPC-employed software team, or really,
solely, for yourself? 

If the last (which I'll assume since I take it to be the literal meaning
of your statement): 

a) why would you feel that you, personally, are supporting arbitrary
'risky things' that someone else thought were good ideas? 

(particularly when they go to the effort of developing, testing, and
submitting a patch in order to offer everyone the opportunity to reach
their own judgment of the merits of the proposal?)

b) given that you currently feel this way, have you considered changing
your feelings by letting the role of 'human firewall' fall on some
different, perhaps larger set of shoulders, for example, those of the
design- and code-review community whose help I solicited by publishing
my first email?

Sincerely,

Michael