Commercial Linux distributors sell certain products which try to address special user needs.
This is only a small set of examples how commercial GNU/Linux distributors try to address specific user interests with certain products.
The solution which Debian found for this problem is just called "Debian Custom Distributions".
The target user of a Custom Debian Distribution is either a specialist of a certain real live profession (i.e. doctor, lawyer, etc.), a person which has not (yet) gathered a certain amount of computer knowledge (for instance children) or people with disabilities (visually or aurally impaired people).
The common attribute to these target users is less technical competence. These people do not even want to notice the computer - they just want to work on their real live job. Imagine a doctor who has to move the focus of interest from the patient to his stupid computer who does not really work as expected.
Because of the limited knowledge or time property the target user is not able to install upstream programs which means at the first place to find out, which software package might serve for a certain problem. The next step would be to download and install the program in question perhaps requiring a certain amount of configuration effort. This problem is nearly impossible for those users with limited technical competence and perhaps no knowledge of English language which prevents the user from understanding the installation manual.
The language barrier in this field is an important issue because we are aiming to everyday users who are not forced to learn English like Free Software developers for every day communication. So the installation process has to cope with as less as possible user interaction and this interaction has to be internationalised.
Furthermore the target user has no interest in administration of his computer. In short: The optimal situation would be that he would not even notice the existence of the computer and just focus to the concrete application which provides the functionality for the real live job.
Common to all groups of target users is their interest in defined subset of available Free Software. None of them wants to do researches nor has the time to search for the package which fits his interest. Instead the target user wants to see all stuff which is relevant for his own task immediately.
There is an absolute need for easy usage of the programs. This is not so much a concern of learning to use the software because if people want to make money with a certain piece of software they accept to spend a reasonable amount of time in learning. But a simple to learn environment is an extra plus and if you think of children as target users they just want to start without reading any technical stuff.
The more important part of the request for easy usage is a professional design which is functional and effective. To reach this approach the programmers need expert knowledge or at least a quick communication channel to experts to learn more about their requirements. One task of the Custom Debian Distributions is to bring programmers and experts who will use those special programs together.
Last but not least we find certain requirements for each target user group. This can be different between different Custom Debian Distributions. For instance while a doctor has to protect his database against attacks of an external spy the chance of this event is quite low for a box of a child. So the Debian Junior project has more or less to care that the user itself does not disturb his own desktop while playing around with all these buttons and external attacks are not in the main focus. So we find a "defined security profile" for each single Custom Debian Distribution.
In the field which should be covered by Custom Debian Distributions we have to face also some common things on the administrator side. Often they have a limited time frame to serve a huge lot of computers and thus they are happy about each simplification of administration process. The need for special adaptations for the intended purpose has to be reduced to a minimum.
So administrators are looking for time saving in repetitive tasks. While this is a common issue for each general GNU/Linux distribution this could have certain consequences in the special fields Custom Debian Distributions want to address.
The problem of administrators is often that they are no experts on the special field their clients work on. So they need some specialist knowledge to explain their users the programs they will work on or at least need to be able to communicate nicely with the experts.
Programs like a web server or an office suite are used by many different users. That is why many gifted programmers feel obliged for this kind of Free Software - they just need it for their own. So you normally find a fast growing community around Free Software packages which have a wide use. This is different for specialised software.
Debian Free Software
Guidelines (DFSG)
. Programs which are incompatible with the DFSG
cannot be included in Debian. This is possibly a drawback for those programs
because they could profit by spreading widely on the back of Debian over the
whole world.
DFSG
-free
licenses avoids that problem.
Debian Bug Tracking System
.
paper
about Debian-Med
illustrates this in detail for the problem of
medical practice management. Normally all these programs show very interesting
approaches but all of them have certain drawbacks. So joining programmers'
forces might make sense here.
Free Software development is kind of evolutionary process. It needs a critical mass of supporters which are:
Because specialised software has a limited set of users (specialists) this results in a limited set of programmers.
Debian wants to attract both groups to get it working ... so
Debian is the missing link between upstream developers and users.
Custom Debian Distributions
28 July 2004tille@debian.org