Would a DSpin or DLab for Fedora make sense?

[Idan Arye via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 9 October 2015 at 18:10:59 UTC, tim wrote:
>
> Would a DSpin or DLab for Fedora make sense?
> i.e. a Linux build with most of the D stuff preinstalled.
>
> What is Fedora Labs?
> Fedora Labs is a selection of curated bundles of purpose-driven 
> software and content as curated and maintained by members of 
> the Fedora Community. These may be installed as standalone full 
> versions of Fedora or as add-ons to existing Fedora 
> installations.
>
> What is Fedora Labs?
> Fedora Labs is a selection of curated bundles of purpose-driven 
> software and content as curated and maintained by members of 
> the Fedora Community. These may be installed as standalone full 
> versions of Fedora or as add-ons to existing Fedora 
> installations.
>
> I think Debian has something similar called Blends.
>
> I assume most of the major Linux versions have something 
> similar.

I doubt it'll be a good idea. These bundles seem to target areas 
of interest, never specific languages. You can see bundles geared 
towards graphic designers or gamers, but not ones for C++ or Java 
developers.

I think the reason is that the purpose of these bundles is to 
attract people to install the distribution. "Are you a sound 
editor? We have something just for you - Fedora Jam!". This 
doesn't work the other way around - nobody will start editing 
music just because Fedora offers Fedora Jam...

Also, Fedora Labs is quite a commitment - in order to use one, 
you have to reinstall the OS. This is OK if you are an 
enthusiastic considering a switch to Linux and being offered a 
distribution flavor modified specifically for you hobby, but 
programmers usually expect languages to work on whatever OS 
they'll choose to use(.NET developers choose to ignore the 
existence of non-Windows operation systems :-P).

Existing D developers won't install a new OS just to use D, 
because it's a lot of trouble and they can already use D just 
find in their current setups. We can't attract new D developers 
that way either - convincing someone to try D is hard enough 
without trying to get them to install a new OS!


So, a bundle dedicated to D is not a good idea, but it can be 
nice if we can get D into the existing bundles. For example, if 
we can get D into Fedora Scientific, it can get science 
programmers to try D for their science programs. Of course, for 
that we need to convince the maintainers that D is good for 
science...