I presented this idea on GSOC 2009 project from Fedora on similar topic. Then Toshio Kuratomi replied "Whether or not this accepted for GSOC, there are some good ideas here. I think communicating with the PackageKit developers [1]_ about how your ideas can tie into their ideas for installing from the web is a good place to start if you want to support arbitrary installing packages from arbitrary locations. Talking to me and other fedora Infrastructure people on the fedora-infrastructure list[2]_ or #fedora-admin on <a href="http://irc.freenode.net">irc.freenode.net</a> would be a good starting point if you only want to let people install packages from official Fedora Repositories." So here it goes with the parts of the conversation between me and Mr. Toshio Kuratomi. ====================================== == Why should we choose you over other applicants? == In choosing me over other applications, you may like the following facts : · I am very much passionate about FOSS which you can see from the name I have given to the network I formed (Passion4Freedom) · I have worked in real life FOSS campaigns in educational institutes and formed a FOSS network in those institutes. · I have the knowledge in working with Open Source CMS. This is an added advantage in web projects like this one. · I have knowledge in installing applications on Fedora using .rpm files and by source compilation as well. · I know shell scripting and other Linux programming languages. · I have strong knowledge in C and C++ and basic knowledge about STL and SystemC. · I know Java, Servlet, JSP, EJB. · I have knowledge on Javascript, HTML, CSS. · I have done extensive work on LAMP architechture. · I have used online installation services like Klick or Freespire’s CNR . I also used easy install scripts for various programs · I have been using Fedora for past 3 years and I have closely understood the working of yum. · I have done various personal researches on Fedora in VirtualBox just to understand it better. · I am desperate to contribute something useful to my most beloved distro. I love you Fedora. F8 was my first love and I still love it more than any other distro. · I have already created a website for making installation easy on fedora <a href="http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net/">http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net</a> (it is on a free server, so it may be down sometimes, please consider). I hope that this will tell about my idea in a more clear way. == Proposal Description == Here is my proposal in detail: * An overview of my proposal To create an online software archive for Fedora which gives the user a one click install facility, my approach is based on community contribution. Instead of going for a synchronized UI for repository, I created a drupal based website that has an archive of software installer scripts for various versions of Fedora. The archive is maintained by the community and they update/comment on the software. The website is indexed and keyword searching can be used to search the software of choice. The shell scripts are executable text files with .qi extension. They are made in such a way so that user can install it by executing just once. The whole archive can be edited by ever member and any member can upload a new shell script for installation of any software. The proposal has been converted to a website already ( <a href="http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net/">http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net</a> ). The cause for which I did not take up creating UI for repository is also because I do not have enough technical knowledge about that. If GSOC mentor provides me that technical guidance I hope it wont be much tough for me as I have the right passion for freedom. * The need I believe it fulfils It makes software installation a lot easier to newbies and saves time for pros. This is a requirement of all Fedora users and this should be implemented as soon as possible as that will make the usability of Fedora much more. * Any relevant experience I have · Experience with Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. · Experience with creation of social networking websites. · Experience of creating simple installer shell scripts for fedora apps. · Experience with web CMS softwares. · <a href="http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net/">http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net</a> can be viewed as an effort along the same path. * How I intend to implement my proposal · Wiki Style · Drupal based · Community maintained · Downloadable shell scripts with chmod 777 · 1 click install for end users * A rough timeline for my progress · Depends. If it is to be done in the way I am proposing then Fine tuning to suit your needs is the only thing left. And that should not take much time. · If I have to build it as a synchronized UI to the repository then as I do not have enough technical knowledge on synchronizing with repo, I am not being able to estimate the timeline very well · But, as a whole I can assure you that with the fire for freedom and fedora within me, it will be easily converted into reality within the timeline of GSOC (if not earlier). * Any other details you feel we should consider · Online distribution customization following the paths of nimbleX and Slax. · Desktop tool for installing most important apps following the way of automatix in ubuntu. ==================================================================================<div class="title"> On 6th April 2009 15:26 Toshio Kuratomi wrote: </div> I like the idea of having a simple way to install packages. However, there's a few problems with the proposal. <ol><li>The Package Database is a python application. We'd want to tie any official installation of packages for Fedora into that so we need python knowledge.</li><li>You need to talk to the PackageKit developers and Fedora Infrastructure in order to find out what the constraints each group would have.</li><li>From the Fedora Infrastructure side:</li></ol> <blockquote> <ul><li> We probably can't host arbitrary install scripts as we aren't able to legally point to arbitrary packages. For instance, many multimedia codecs are patented without licenses to be used in free software.</li><li> We would want to avoid Drupal if we can. We already have the PackageDB and this is most likely something we'd want to integrate there. We've recently settled on Zikula for a CMS solution so if we needed to implement something on top of a CMS platform, I'd rather we used that.</li></ul> ===================== I replied: <blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Personally, I think easy package installation with simple scripts is a better idea. For example to run .exe files it is more user friendly if I give a script to install wine, wine-doors, playonlinux all together instead of giving them a package UI where upon searching they will be able to find three different packages for the cause. Some people install wine and complain that wine is not able to play games but they dont install playonlinux as they just dont know abut it.</blockquote><div>(This is just a part of my reply) </div><div>===================== <div class="studentproposalreview studentproposalreview-public"> <div class="title"> On 16th April 2009 21:41 Toshio Kuratomi wrote: </div> <div class="other"> Yeah, I'm afraid it's a bit too late for GSoC 2009. But I'm glad to hear you're going to work on your ideas some more. I can see what you mean about trying to associate things that serve the same task (like wine, wine-doors, and playonlinux). I'm hoping that tagging of packages and searching by tag will help us get closer to that within Fedora with the official Fedora repositories. Letting people install things that aren't in the official repositories is probably something that won't happen within Fedora but it could be useful for a third party site to do. Building up and managing trust would be the hard task in this regard, though, as it's easy to provide a script for users to download and install arbitrary software on their computers but hard to protect them in case either the scripts are malicious or the software the scripts point at become malicious. </div> </div> =================================== Here goes my final proposal : "I have started the project at <a href="http://install.passion4freedom.07x.net">install.passion4freedom.07x.net</a> with 100 students here at Kolkata, India. We hope to build it up soon. But I still can not understand,why you guys are not able to back the project. As far as I understand, if your main problem is that you can not depend on the user community i.e. you are afraid that the users may upload malicious code, then why not build a similar website which will not give the option to upload the scripts to the users. Why dont we (you and I) take the responsibility of creating such scripts and let the users download the scripts. Let me explain to you how great this thing can be. Suppose a user needs to download the source code of the latest kernel. We can create a script to simplify his job in the following way 1. Script asks the user where to store the file 2. cd "Specified DIR" 3. wget "kernel source url" 4. untar 5. open DIR in nautilus This way user gets to use it with comfort. Otherwise if they had to write each command by hand or had to find where the source code is (manually) and how to untar it, they could have felt that using GNU/Linux is basically a terminal job. I feel it will be better if Fedora offficially supports the project as this project has the ability to simplify the whole procedure of installation in GNU/Linux. If you feel I am wrong, please comment on where I am getting it wrong? Also, I know that there may be legal issues for supporting installation of Flash and other properietory thing. But why not simplify the normal installations, even if we can't proceed with the properietory ones. I still have a confusion. Why will there be legal issues if we proceed in the following way : A person wants to install Flash We provide him a script which will guide him to the website of flash with a text mode browser Upon accepting the license script asks him "where to save the file" after downloading the file, script installs it immediately Spot the difference with the options available now. In this way the person feels the same way that he used to feel when he used to install softwares on his previous popular properietory distribution. Here also he needs to accept and press enter to move to the next step (The next-next feeling is what I am talking about). Also he gets the feeling that here the case is even better as the installer not only downloads the file but also installs it at a go. He will feel that it is easier to use GNU/Linux. This project will make s/w instalation on GNU/Linux systems much more easier. If fedora provides support and expertise, I feel it will soon become a useful contribution to Fedora community and will certainly become a reliable service. I hope you guys get my point. Please comment." Please reply. </div> </blockquote>