Last DMD made me truly breathless -- for the wrong reasons

[Georg Wrede]

Anders F Björklund wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
> 
>> We could have a few distros, each trying to be more user friendly,
>> more outa-the-zip usable, and later distros for specific things, like
>> games development, office stuff development, systems stuff, etc. If
>> Linux seems to prosper with it, then I see no reason why D couldn't.

With Linux (and Unix and BSD and Mac), the distros I'm talking about 
should of course adhere to existing standards. That is, be packaged as 
.rpm files (for RedHat) and whatever else is customary on the other 
'nixes. This is obvious.

On Windows, I believe the distros should essentially be self installing 
packages. Whether they are created with Install Shield or hand-made, 
that is mainly the distro creator's head ache. The customer really cares 
only about ease and reliability. The most primitive distros could simply 
be .zip archives that contain a .bat file that the readme tells you to 
run once.

> Linux is Free Software under the GPL, though ? Then again, so is GDC...
> I think that a D "distro" is a great idea, but would prefer GNU GPL+FDL.

Of course that would be the cleanest alternative. And no doubt, if ever 
this distro thing gets off ground, surely there will be at least one 
that combines GDC with a bunch of GPL+FDL stuff only.

>> The DMD license could deny charging for such distros. At the same time 
>> the text would recommend contacting DM, "for very reasonable deals" on 
>> for-profit distribution, including book-sleeve CDs.
> 
> AFAIK, the DM license forbids all re-distribution of the DMD software ?
> So if I made a friendly installer for DMC/DMD, I couldn't distribute it.

The point of my post was to encourage Walter to slightly adjust this 
single aspect of the DM license, for this very purpose.

If that gets done, then we'd have a Darwinian forest of D-distros, the 
best of which would survive. Not to mention the variety and buzz and 
controversy between them, all of which would ultimately help spread the 
word about D's existence in the first place.

     Think about it: D development has become almost exponential.
     At the same time, the current "distro", as seen from end-user
     perspective, is exactly the same as the one you got 4 years
     ago. Really. What if we got this distro development speed to
     match that of D itself? For comparison, imagine D a year ago
     and compare with today. Then imagine the current "D distro"
     and imagine one year from now, with the same speed of
     development. "You aint seen nothin yet" _should_ be the
     motto here.

Even if some distro is plain crap, it wouldn't harm D's (or DM's or 
DMD's, or the community's) public image, folks would simply dump it and 
find a better one. This is no big deal, it happens in the consumer 
market all the time, and even when we are at the TV remote control, or 
when we choose what to eat this time.

The following paragraph:

> The DMD license could deny charging for such distros. At the same time the text would recommend contacting DM, "for very reasonable deals" on for-profit distribution, including book-sleeve CDs. 

was there to show how this can be done without losing credibility 
amongst the potential for-profit parties. I honestly don't expect DM to 
make any money from repackaging licenses, but the statement obviously 
still has to be there. (I don't expect DM to make revenue directly with 
DMD any other way either. In a world of free as beer compilers, I just 
don't think so. Any money Walter makes from D will probably be indirect, 
like consultation, paid articles, programming, seminars, books, etc.)

Against this background, it suddenly doesn't seem like such a far 
fetched idea to let indie distros flourish.

---

But there's another alternative too:

Walter might license some individuals directly.