Re: This was posted on Digg.com -- Bayer Commercial?

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

Raybo <rlewis@dtnspeed.net> wrote:
> That is a well written and infomative article thanks for
> posting the link. 

[ FYI, before you draw up any conclusions on myself,
understand I was a Debian maintainer for a little while (back
in 2001-2003), and I still deploy Debian distributions.  I
have huge respect for Debian-founder Ian Murdock as well as
Caldera co-founder Ransom Love, who has been with Murdock's
Progeny for some time.  I believe Progeny understand
commercialization of Linux better than anyone. ]

I'm still trying to figure out what the article was trying to
convey.  E.g., it quoted a ZDNet AU article about "flaming
Linux bigots" which _is_ actually a major issue, although the
article was rather clueless in other aspects.  What that had
anything to do with this article, I have no idea.  And in
summary, this article is just another "my distro is better
than your distro, because I'm pointing to differences I make
(and others could easily say they are similarities."

My personal favorite was the splitting of Fedora and Red Hat,
kinda like Bayer did with regards to Tylenol and Extra
Strength Tylenol in its infamous commercial of the '80s.  And
that NetCraft survey was limited to web servers.  But one
thing I got tired of is hearing how Red Hat supposedly
"droped it's low-end free distribution."  That's simply not
true at all.

A lot of people who aren't using Fedora love to comment about
how Red Hat "got out" of the non-Enterprise Linux market, not
realizing that Fedora *IS* a project like Debian.  Red Hat
never officially supported Red Hat Linux releases more than 1
year, and even now, Red Hat continues to provide just as much
support for Fedora Core (let alone there is Fedora Legacy
afterwards).  Red Hat still puts paid people on Fedora Core,
because RHEL quality is tied to it.  Furthermore, a number of
Debian maintainers also Fedora Core and Extras contributors
now.

Red Hat didn't leave, it just realized that the trademark
issues and liability wasn't worth it.  Debian isn't a product
either, so I still wonder what this author is trying to say
when he introduces Debian.  I mean, let's see here, Red Hat
decides that's the Debian model is _better_ and _adopts_ it,
so what was wrong again with Red Hat dropping the Red Hat
Linux line again?!?!?!  At least in contrast to Debian?

A point I have hammered how regularly is that Debian is the
most mature when it comes to its distribution model.  Fedora
still has alterior goals, so it will never be Debian.  But
there is a lot of overlap in the Debian and Fedora concepts
-- both are "package" based distros.  Both seem to learn from
one another.  Heck, Murdock's Progency adopted Fedora's
Anaconda for its Componentized Linux.

The best features of different distros draw from each other. 
This is very true in the "packages" distros like Debian,
Fedora or most of the other distros based on this (either in
the past or more recently).  About the only distro that makes
a radical departure is Gentoo, which is a "ports" based
distro.

> After reading the article, I think I'll go back and give
> Debian a go again. 

Debian has been, and will always be, a great packages distro.
 I still use it, even though I tend to support Fedora-based
distros more, because there is an Enterprise version. 
Murdock & co. says Progeny will address an enterprise/SLA
version of Debian shortly, and that's good to hear because I
can start pushing it more too.

> I haven't used it for a few years and always enjoy the
> experience of working with several distro's at once anyway.
> Anyone using Debian right now?

I have been for a long time.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

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