Re: [TCLUG:9416] MediaOne Roadrunner and Linux (fwd)

[Christopher Reid Palmer <reid@pconline.com>]

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, John R. Sheets wrote:

> No matter how good Redhat's intentions are, they are still subject to a
> certain insider's approach.

Yeah, and you know what else they're subject to? Intense scrutiny of their
code and packages by millions of motivated geeks.


> If they are going to sell a stable distribution (as opposed
> to giving it away for free), they *have* to make sure the packages all
> work together.  This makes it very dangerous for them to accept
> unsolicited packages.

*ahem* contrib/


> Except that the money Redhat makes from selling its distribution is part
> of its business plan, whereas the money Debian gets (or does it?  I
> don't know how the deal works with VA) is non-essential, as Debian is a
> non-profit organization.  If Redhat stopped making money, it would die;
> if Debian stopped making money, it would shrug and keep going.

If Red Hat died, all the source code they *paid developers to write* would
still be with us.


> > I don't recommend Debian due to the holier than though attitude
> > I continually see from the users.
> 
> I have heard these exact same sentiments in the Linux vs. Microsoft
> arguments, with the Linux zealots making the Microsoftian uncomfortable
> with their strong feelings over their OS.  It is this zeal which propels
> people to succeed.  If you try to stamp out this Debian-loving spirit,
> you might as well stamp out the Linux-loving spirit while you're at it.

Mark was talking about the non-Debian-hating spirit, not the Debian-loving
spirit.


> (c:  It's your decision, but it seems to me that it's better to dismiss
> things on technical grounds than on personal grounds.  The question
> should be, in what ways is Redhat better than Debian?

That's not a valid question either. Here is the *one, single* valid
question: Is the software free? Both Red Hat and Debian can give good
answers to that question. Microsoft (e.g.) cannot.


> > The question is, is debian willing to work with RedHat to work on
> > a single packaging system format?
> 
> IMHO, this is a noble request, but not a fair demand to make.  Both
> distributions have built their empires around their packaging systems.
> Massive resources have already been allocated to support each format.
> Whichever dist made the change would have to face a very large, irate
> crowd of their users, which would have an immediate and deadly impact on
> their respective user base.

Not so, because the presence of one packaging system does not preclude the
presence of the other.


> How would the Redhat developers/maintainers feel if they had to convert 
> their hundreds of RPMs over to DEB format?  And we're not just talking
> about converting them with Alien.  The specs files for each and every
> package would have to be re-written to match the DEB format.  During
> that transition, the user base would either have to sit on stale RPM
> packages while waiting for the new Redhat DEB versions to appear, or use
> the already-existing Debian packages instead.  And if they're going to
> do that, they might as well use Debian!

I see a lot of words, but I don't see a point.


--
  Christopher Reid Palmer : http://www.innerfireworks.com/