Re: A plea for some peace
"C. Cooke" wrote:
I suspect I'm not the only one in this position - the debian
> package management is a *real* killer when it comes to impressing people.
You are completely right with that. I am in the same position as I
evaluated different Linux distributions for about 4 months and chose
Debian because of its package management and the perfect integration of
all kinds of packages. For a rather long time, I tended to chose RedHat
because of the hardware auto-detection, the management interface(s) and
a few other things. But then, I tried out some simple package management
tasks with both RedHat and Debian with the effect that Debian is now
running on all of our company's servers and some workstations too. Three
of them are running with potato since December and I did not have any
severe problems during the upgrades.
This is a perfect situation for a Linux distribution, please do not
change it. I also try to use free software whenever possible (e.g. I am
using openssh since the first Debian package was available), but at this
time, my company can not live without some of the packages from non-free
(such as gif support, rar, zip and some other small utilities). All of
the packages that are installed on our servers are free to use but do
not comply to the DFSG. It would be wonderful if there were replacements
for all of them, but there are none.
Therefore I think that at the moment, most Debian users (even the ones
using it on servers - a task for which Debian *IS* definitely the best
distribution) will need non-free software. Hopefully, in a year or two
everything can be done with DFSG-free software. When this happens, I
will support removing non-free from Debian in any way.
PS: My vote won't count since my application is still pending (since
March 1999 btw. - hint, hint :) ), but I already maintain two packages
in potato. Both of them are free at this time, but logcheck was not when
I created the package initially. I think that a good amount of the
packages that are non-free at the moment will become completely free
within a year, as it happened to logcheck after I convinced the author
to make it free.
best greets, and PLEASE do not split Debian - it would only harm both
sides
Rene Mayrhofer
Reply to: