Hi everybody!
I have an idea and would like to share it with you guys. I want to know what do you think about it and hear some suggestions. The idea is to create an Open Distribution Championship. The goal of the competition is to improve the quality of distribution and make the life of regular user easier. The contestants are general purpose distributions that have to be stock, default, no extra packages installed, and they will be represented by teams. There is a list of tasks divided in categories that the teams have to accomplish. A special ranking scale system will help to evaluate the performance of teams objectively. Each team earns points for each task. As an example of task could be "do screen sharing with other computers" or "Add a user account". If the team is not able to accomplish the task = 0 points, if it accomplishes it automatically = 10 points and so on. I've created the ranking system, so who is interested i can share more details on that. At the end the points for all tasks are summed up and the winner is determined. As an award there could be a certificate, even medals with a championship cup, and if this thing becomes popular, donations from the championship could be given to top 3 teams so they can invest in their development. You might ask, who needs that and why you need another flamewar? I consider that as an in any sport or championship, competition is healthy. It helps develop technology and actually unites people around a common goal. Lot of the distributions forgot what is they main purpose - help the user to accomplish his tasks with no extra effort. Instead everybody claims is the easiest and the best distribution. The point here is to create a single system of values as well a common evaluation system of quality. In this way, defragmented distributions could be directed to the right path. Thank you for your attention. If there is anybody interested in this project, you can ask question and details. Ill be more then happy to answer you and hear from you.

Interesting idea, but I think Arch will be at somewhat of a disadvantage.
The "base" package is console only...

Tell me guys, is this idea really sucks so much that out of 150 people only one person answered?

Well, don't feel put aside that not everyone agrees with your thoughts.

If you are open to criticism, your original post is one large paragraph. Not saying that I'm any more organized, in fact many times I'll run-on with sentences and thoughts.

For myself, I have found that if I take the time to organize complex concepts, review it from several angles, and make sure the concepts are clear enough, then I have better results.

I did read all you wrote; Head on a Stick's point is applicable, you're ignoring command prompt only distributions.

For me personally, I feel there are a lot of distributions out there and that it's worth trying some of those to see if they match what your goal is here.

It was unclear if your competition/proposal was to have persons CREATE a distro for testing or the TRY existing distros and customize them.

Also, again my personal preferences. I could care less about how easy or seamless it would be to share a screen with another computer, I never do that. Not being a sys-admin I also rarely add users except when I first set up a system. However I can do that so I'm kind of so-so about caring how easy it is, because to me it is easy. The question therefore is what would the knowledge and proficiency of the testors need to be to satisfy the ease of use criteria?

Those are some of my two cents, however I do feel that your preferences for a disto are different than mine. That's not the end of the world, the other 6 billion people likely do not agree with all I say or think.

Maybe sponsorship of your idea would help it to grow. Maybe colleges might be interested in the concept to help the students learn more about Linux.

Best of luck. I hope my style suggestions or thoughts don't deter you from your project.

I thought folks created distributions so solve a particular problem they saw and if you see things the same way then you are welcome to use it.

I think your idea is fine if you acknowledge that not everyone is going to play and that you'll have to subjectively rand players to non-players.

You lost me there. I use distributions where after you install the distribution itself, you're expected to install the software you want as a separate step.

While my distribution of choice can be installed as a lump sum, I also choose to install only a minimal version and build it the way I prefer it to be also. So I also wouldn't be interested.

And how would a few people playing a game help improve an OS? Each system (hopefully) does the job it was designed for. Also, a competition would measure the skill level of the participants more than the quality of the systems.

That is your opinion. Many people would disagree.

The criteria determining quality will vary among users. Slackware, Arch and Ubuntu users will have three very different ideas of what constitutes a quality OS.

Given this and your earlier statement about no effort, the purpose of the idea seems to be determining which system is the easiest for beginners to use.

What is a defragmented distribution? What is the right path? I am certain your idea of the right path is very different than mine.

"The point here is to create a single system of values as well a common evaluation system of quality. In this way, defragmented distributions could be directed to the right path."

The diversity of Linux is or was it's greatest strength, we already have enough outside push toward standardization, many of us want nothing to do with a standardized Linux so I would in no way be interested in your idea.

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Moved: This thread is more suitable in < Linux - Distributions > and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.