gathering use cases

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On 9 November 2012 10:19, Tony Anderson <tony at olenepal.org> wrote:
> Hi, Sridhar
>
> Thanks for the clarification. I guess I was mislead by statements such as:
>
> The platform for the One Network server is an ARMv7-based XO, running the
> One Education OS (based on OLPC OS). This makes development, and deployment
> and support far simpler than a standalone distribution. The OS can be
> extended with server capabilities using a bootable USB Customisation Stick
> (offline) or yum.
>
> Please accept my apology if any statement I have made seemed uncivil, that
> was certainly not my intention. Communicating by email in certainly much
> more hazardous in this regard than face-to-face.

Thank you, Tony. I was quite careful to take your needs into account
when I wrote the design doc, so I had trouble understanding your
opposition to the idea.

Maybe we can make the doc clearer somehow? I structured it as:

  1. context
  2. Community XS design
  3. One Network server

The Community XS design itself is flexible enough to handle a variety
of different deployments' needs. One Network server is merely one
configuration of the Community XS, mentioned as an example of what can
be done.


> Just as the deployments you are supporting have specific and urgent needs,
> so do the ones I am working with. I don't believe either of us is pursuing
> personal desires. We certainly can easily differ on which is the appropriate
> technical approach to solving the problems of a deployment.

I think we generally want the same thing in the end. I'm happy to
continue the conversation to improve the design and implementation. I
sincerely believe that this design can accommodate your needs.


> I really appreciate this specification:
>
>
>   * this is a flexible design, built on Fedora
>   * it will run anywhere where x86 or ARM Fedora will work
>   * it can be installed on top of an existing Fedora installation
> using 'yum groupinstall xsce'
>   * being designed in this way provides extreme flexibility for deployments
>   * all current features of the XS (Moodle, etc.) will be ported, but
> will be optional
>   * installation and configuration will be easy, but sysadmins will be
> able to treat it like any Fedora installation

Awesome. I hope this also satisfies your desire to have it rebased to
Fedora to work on ARM systems. That's a key goal of this project,
while maintaining compatibility with x86.


> There is clearly a great deal to be gained by a community taking
> responsibility for the ongoing development and maintenance of the school
> server as neither Daniel Drake nor Martin Langhoff are likely to have
> adequate time for this in the foreseeable future.

Indeed. A motivating factor was to take some of the load off some of
these prolific people and spread it out to the community in a
sustainable way.


Cheers,
Sridhar