Userops Acid Test

Userops Acid Test

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Hello all,

Some of you might know about my interest in making the world of
user-oriented deployment a better one, roughly called "userops".  Here's
a post with some background:

  http://mediagoblin.org/news/userops.html

I decided it might be useful to list properties I think such a system
should provide.  So, here's Userops Acid Test v0.1:

  http://dustycloud.org/blog/userops-acid-test/

These are an implementation-agnostic (or an attempt to be) set of
properties that I think a system needs to provide to make deployment
fairly easy.

I'm interested in helping get Guix to this state; there are some things
that Guix does currently on this list really well, and some things it's
really lacking at the moment.  Anyway, since I'm going to be working on
that more over the next few months, I thought I'd make note of this list
here... maybe others will find it interesting!

 - Chris

Re: Userops Acid Test

[Ludovic Courtès]

Christopher Allan Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> skribis:

> I decided it might be useful to list properties I think such a system
> should provide.  So, here's Userops Acid Test v0.1:
>
>   http://dustycloud.org/blog/userops-acid-test/

Thanks for thinking it through and coming up with this check list, I
think it’s a great idea!

Random comments:

  • You’re well aware of this, but I think mentioning simply “free
    software” or “freedom-enhancing software” etc. would make item #0
    even more obvious; mentioning “open source” doesn’t help IMO.

  • I think 2.a. could be labeled “Verifiable packages”, because that’s
    really what it’s about.

  • A friendly GUI à la YouNoHost is a very good idea.  But I think
    ideally the user interface should make it easy for users to get
    closer to the code, à la Emacs, which can be challenging.  GUIs have
    a tendency to draw too sharp a boundary between the experts who
    implemented it and those who use it.  Everyone should be empowered.

  • The term “scriptable” reminds me of that user/developer boundary, as
    in scriptable applications where experts use the language of the
    wizards (C!) while normal people are left with a less capable
    programming interface.  I prefer to think of “hackability.”

Deployment power to the people!  :-)

> I'm interested in helping get Guix to this state; there are some things
> that Guix does currently on this list really well, and some things it's
> really lacking at the moment.  Anyway, since I'm going to be working on
> that more over the next few months, I thought I'd make note of this list
> here... maybe others will find it interesting!

Now that’s exciting news!

Thanks,
Ludo’.