Re: Difference between blends and remastered systems

[Ben Armstrong <synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca>]

On 07/06/2011 12:32 PM, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 2:53 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> 
>> I suspect that a "Debian Blend" (i.e. not "Pure") can be anything based
>> on Debian, possibly with the intend of some day become a "Debian Pure
>> Blend".
> 
> "Debian derivative" is a better term for such things IMO.

I would agree with Jonas that the difference in the terms we use is
intent. While a Blend strives to mainstream with Debian, a derivative
strives to differentiate from Debian.

I realize there's a big grey area here. It's one thing to hold as an
ideal to mainstream everything you include into Debian, it's quite
another to have a realistic plan for doing so. But I would tend towards
a more inclusive use of the term Blend (without "Pure") to refer to
those who are philosophically aligned with our approach even if
technically you might consider them derivatives. Nor do I think it
waters down the term to be inclusive in this fashion.

>> I suspect that a "remastered Debian system" can just be anything based
>> on Debian.
> 
> Sounds like a Debian install to me, unless it is a livecd with a
> different set of packages to the "official" livecds, then I would
> consider it a derivative.

Not sure exactly what you mean. I've seen few 'remasters' that I would
consider anything other than a derivative. Or at least, since the
remastering process tends to be ad-hoc or a driven by custom scripts, I
would tend to classify all such things as derivatives by default unless
proven otherwise.

Ben