[Asterisk-doc] I'm thinking that FTP makes more sense for Volume One than CVS does

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 12:05 -0400, jim at digitalchemy.ca wrote:
> Brian,
> 
> 
> What I want to do is take a position and argue a point of view.
> 
> 
> What you are saying makes sense from the perspective of having the
> latest
> patches and such, but CVS is generally popular in a development
> environment. 
> 
> 
> FTP is the delivery mechanism that most people will expect to use.
> Administrators all know FTP; I would suspect that CVS is a far less
> common
> skill amongst Linux admins (you might argue that a good Linux admin
> should 
> know CVS, but I'm not so concerned about what skills people _should_
> have, 
> what matters is what skills people _do_ have).
> 
> 
> It seems a safe bet that having a 1.0 release is going create a whole
> new 
> group of people interested in downloading and installing Asterisk.
> Handling 
> the very different needs of these constituents may mean doing things
> that
> aren't technically ideal, but are nonetheless required based on the
> cultural environment.
> 
> 
> The problem we have is this: Asterisk is still the exclusive domain of
> the über-geek. The question seems to be whether the use of CVS and
> such are
> considered tests which must be passed for membership into the club, or
> whether efforts need to be made to make entry easier. As an example,
> you
> have advised me to "just specify the '1-0' stable branch when you
> checkout", but I have tried that and met with no success. Since I do
> not
> understand the CVS program well enough to troubleshoot, I am left with
> the
> feeling that I do not qualify for entrance to the Asterisk club, by
> virtue
> of my inability to comprehend CVS. 

Interesting that you couldn't follow directions posted not that long ago
when we branched... I've only ever used HEAD so I don't know how hard
the process is. 

> FTP and tar work fine, BTW.

And a HTTP link is even better due to some firewall concerns. Plus there
is a chance that you can get other services that will cache copies
closer to the souce. Last I checked, some ISPs provide caches to help
make their upstream seem larger and would have the bennefit of reducing
some peoples server load. Of course you have to deal with what is
offered.

> I am possibly a good example of the new breed of Asterisk users. I
> come
> from the world of PBXs, and I guess would qualify as a power-user when
> it
> comes to Linux. Based on conversations I've had with people, I've
> concluded
> that I am at the high end of the newbie skill set, but the low end of
> the
> developer skill set. Frankly, even though I am assisting in writing
> the
> documentation, I am actually also one of the people who needs it very
> badly
> in order to hone my skills.

little point here, if you still think there is any newbie left in you,
your not yet a poweruser. Your developer skill set still doesn't get you
to poweruser status. I don't feel I am a power user yet as I am in an
enviroment where I can look at people who work in unix exclusively and
in university.  

> For me, FTP is a piece of cake; CVS is a annoying mystery. You might
> say
> "just learn CVS", and on one level you'd be right, but on another
> level
> what we will be doing is driving potential users away because of
> processes
> that are not attractive to the average person.

Please find a different word than "attractive" there. Very little in
unix is "attractive" to a average person. Then again the average person
still can't figure out that no matter how attractive Outlook or
OutlookExpress is, it is not safe to run.

> It's a tough call between doing what is pure and good, versus doing
> what
> stands the best chance of attracting an appropriate audience.

I don't think the use of FTP, HTTP, or CVS is going to attract an
audience. The quality of the documentation in any other section is going
to be the attraction. The instructions in this regard just need to be
correct and easy to follow.


I hope this helps just a bit. Maybe it helps put a different perspective
on where we are and going.
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>