A solemn topic about succession

[az2020]

I hate to be a buzzkill. But, last month Peppermint OS's author/creator (Mark Greaves) passed away. I get the impression that community wasn't prepared; might be struggling to fill those shoes (maybe not fully involved in what Mark did. I don't know. I haven't asked. But, I can see how that could happen.).

I've been wondering whether Linux Lite's community ever thinks about such things? Are there more people involved in LL's development? Would it exist without Jerry?

I'm not really asking for answers. Just wondering if anyone has thought of such things (and raising that topic, if not).

[Valtam]

I'm glad you're not asking for answers because they will appear at 'that time'. Suffice to say there is a plan in place. If I live until 65, I will still be maintaining LL. That gives everyone at least another 17 years of LL or 8 or so more Series (Series 13.x?). New Zealand's official retirement age is 65, but I also think if I get bored enough in retirement, perhaps LL is the answer to staying active. Time will tell.

[JonMikelV]

Let's be positive here - WHEN you live to 65 you'll still be maintaining LL!

And beyond that, I'd really like to see LL running on my contact lenses.  Come on - who WOULDN'T want an awesome 3-D Linux? :-)

But seriously, it's good to hear consideration has been put into keeping LL going even if you can't / don't keeping working on it.  Thanks for all your time & effort Jerry!

[az2020]

It's a difficult topic. Nobody expects that sort of thing. We just go along thinking the next day will be like the previous. It sounds like he was young. Went to the hospital mid December; passed away 3 weeks later.

I've always been put off by Ubuntu's corporate culture (councils, SOPs, etc.). But, I can see how that level of organization helps ensure that the base (and distros, I assume) are more than one person, would survive a sudden loss of talent.

My impression is that Mark (Peppermint) had a circle of trusted supporters/enthusiasts who were more in the know. But, not involved in what he was doing. (It's possible nobody had time/skill to participate at that level. Not that he wanted it that way.). It's strange to think about how there must have been a lot of effort toward backups, security, etc. (ensuring no interruption; permanency). But, we never think about how we (the individual) could disappear in an instant.

Anyway, I just wanted to raise the topic. I bet most distros are "at risk" that way, an it's just the nature of someone freely providing their creativity. But, we don't think about it much because it's human nature to think everyone's tomorrow will be like the previous day. We never think about how, in many ways, we (humans) are the weak link. We can be extremely OCD about backups, "vulnerabilities," etc. But, glibly imply (in that process) that we'll be here an hour from now.

[Artim]

One-man-show projects are always in this kind of danger.  Some of them have enough enthusiastic supporters to keep the project going, like with Crunchbang Linux, whose successor is Bunsen Labs Linux.  The project lives on! The Mepis project lives on in MX-Linux and antiX Linux.  The same will probably be true of other awesome "one man" distros like PCLinuxOS, which has a large team of very active developers, and Linux Mint.  I don't know if Linux Lite also has a large team of very active developers, but it doesn't appear to, since we don't hear from them very much, only Jerry. 

I know a lot of Linux users don't like "corporations," as if it's somehow evil or something to "make money off of Linux" (Red Hat, Canonical, IBM, etc).  But they offer stability, support, and a future that even the best one-man distros cannot.  When Jerry can no longer keep LL going, I don't think there is a large enough team behind him to maintain it.  Partially that's because LL is aimed at new users, not Linux devs, so it may not be attracting much talent for development.

More on the subject here