[@core] working definition for the minimal package set

[Matthew Miller]

Okay, cool -- there's a lot of enthusiasm for a SIG for the core package
set.

So, first up on the SIG goals: clarifying our target.

It's been suggested before that there's so many possibilities that this is
useless, but the point here is to *pick* a reasonable choice as a group and
to work with that (even if we can't get complete consensus). Then, later,
when someone says "but minimal could mean so many differen things!" we
simply say "sure, but *this* is what we mean".

I see three basic options for the target:

 A) kernel + init system and we're done
 B) "boot to yum (with network)": a text-mode bootstrap environment on which
    other things can be added by hand (or by kickstart)
 C) a traditional Unix command line environment with the expected basic
    tools available

To me, 'C' is too wide for two reasons. First, it's too open for continual
debate, because different people might expect different tools. Second, it's
not necessarily the right base for the rest of the distribution, because
many use cases might not really need that traditional Unix environment.

I think 'A' is interesting and useful, but I don't think it should be our
target, because it's not *useful enough*. We may want to eventually define a
sub-group which covers just this tiny base (maybe with busybox?), but I
think that's a different project.

So that leaves me at *mostly B*, although I have some sympathy to the idea
that we should include a few other things like a man page reader, since
we're installing man pages, and a way to deliver e-mail to root, since we're
installing things that send such mail. And I think the core environment
should include ssh, but I'm open to the idea that even that should be an
add-on.

What do you think?

-- 
Matthew Miller  ☁☁☁  Fedora Cloud Architect  ☁☁☁  <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>