Hi,
I am amazed by the usefulness of the CentOS LiveCD and I would like to discuss the scope of the project. Some of the recommendations I made go against the original idea of LiveCD project.
But my (outside) stance on the LiveCD is that it should give the best achievable experience possible for people when trying CentOS. To me that includes adding drivers that are available in other repositories (which are missing from upstream, including wireless firmware, etc...)
I do agree that as soon as we leave the deliver-what-upstream-has path, we may open a can of worms (do we also want to fix known bugs ? replace upstream software ? legality ?), so we have to decide what is desirable, what is possible and where the project's effort ends.
What are the various goals of the LiveCD project ?
- A way for people to see what hardware is supported by CentOS - with drivers included by upstream only - with drivers that can be added with little effort (to eg. accomodate eeepc and other purposes) - including a tool to send a hardware status report to a central database
- A tool for recovering a broken system - include only a few basic tools for debugging
- A tool for installing CentOS on a system
- A workable environment for people to use day by day - do we want persistent storage - does it need to be installable from Windows - does it include wireless firmware
- Provide the tools for people to make their own spins - all sorts of appliances, eg. DVR, rescue, ...
I am sure we can list more applicable use-cases for this project. And in the end we have to agree which fit the LiveCD project (eg. whether we make an official CentOS LiveCD and a seperate CentOS-plus LiveCD) and what the main priorities are.
Also, to stimulate the LiveCD development there should be no reason why we couldn't release a LiveCD 5.3.1 or LiveCD 5.3.2 if there are compelling reasons to make a new respin (and update the mirrors).
In the end I see a bright future for the LiveCD as the project where driver-development (dasha, elrepo), CentOS-based appliances, hardware testing, and much more come together. To me it is one of those unique opportunities to drive different other projects with a very positive attitude as it brings (even more) meaning to CentOS to a lot of (new) people.
Where do we want to go with this and what is realistically achievable ?
I am thrilled to find out :)