During the last months, we (Nethesis) tried to build what we think could be a good SME-oriented distro:
NethServer
Our goals were:
simple configuration
quick trouble shooting
fast development of new features
We think we can achieve those goals with:
a new dynamic, streamlined user-interface
standard components, tested widespread configurations
minimal differences with upstream
We would like to attract developers and sysadmins, so we hope that having a common, well known environment would be a good start.
We use and like Smeserver, we think that templates and events are a great idea, so we retained them, along with the plain text configuration databases in NethServer. We built from scratch the new server-manager interface, in php. We rebuilt the mail server using postfix, amavis and dovecot.
We are still working on many featues and writing documentation for contribs developers, but we hope to have reached a point were an alpha release is good enough to have your opinion.
This alpha release is well tested but not ready for production environments.
NethServer is released under the GPL, development is open, developers are welcome.
You could find more informations on the website:
So I will try to explain my thoughs…
In general, The first public release could’nt be the birthday date, because normally, there’s RC, betas and Alphas versions…
Is the Filipo’s post is the start or something what already existing? The mailing list already existe at this time, but what about the project, the idea…
I already see something around 2011, or I’m wrong.
sorry but… seeing the kind of answers this kind of question would rise, I wonder if this kind of question should be posted and, after all, have some importance…
the problem raises where the “joke” posts are a number comparable with the “serious” ones…
let’s say I want to try NS for my enterprise and/or to sell solutions NS based to my customers… I can choose to buy the enterprise support or just to have support from the community…
well, I have no problems to say that even if NS is indeed a big and good piece of sw, I’d no choose it, cause, from my point of view, community is just too “relaxed”…