Re: Was the release of Debian 2.0 put on Linux Announce?
George Bonser wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, George R wrote:
>
> > I'm neither a sysadmin nor a kernel programmer, I'm not even a unix
> > user, I'm just a guy that wanted something stable that was still
> > progressing (deciding to leaving OS/2 took a long time). Funny thing,
> > when I decided to switch my home OS silly me took a few hours and read
> > about various OSs.
>
> Missing the point again as all seem to be in this discussion. I think I
> have seen maybe one post that "got" the point.
>
> Debian can be a really great technical OS but if I can not install a
> particular commercial application and the vendor says "We do not support
> Debian because they are non-standard" then debian goes out the door if
> the project depends on the application.
>
> I will try to go back to the original point by saying that with some sort
> of a standard base, and if Debian were to take part in it, I could rest
> assured that the application WILL run on Debian. If Debian ignores the
> standard and other sign onto it, Debian dies. End of story.
>
> Also, I have read comments here today from people that have no idea what
> free software is. They think it means non-commercial. They think it means
> free in the financial sense. All it means is that you get the source code
> when you get the binaries and you are free to modify and distribute the
> source.
>
> I am really ashamed at some of the comments I see here from people. I
> started out by saying that Debian should have a clearer policy for
> determining versions and then noted that the LSB (if you don't know what
> it is, search Freshmeat) would take care of the concerns I had and then I
> get this load of attitude about screw the users, the Central Committee
> will decide what is best for you (the second time I have use those words
> on this list in the last year).
>
> People have to understand that it is the commercial applications that will
> make Linux. Is Mozilla free ... yes. Is Netscape COmmunicator? No. Mozilla
> is like a reference standard implementation. Netscape might be BASED on
> Mozilla but you will not see the source code for Navigator-4.5.
>
> I am willing to pay for good software that works, I am not willing to pay
> for software that sucks and I am not willing to put up with crappy
> software just because it is free. I use Debian because it is the best
> distribution of Linux and it provides me with what I need right now.
>
> The one main thing that debian has going for it is dselect and apt. The
> second thing is the integration and testing. These are good. Even with
> these things, if commercial applications can not be integrated easilly, it
> is a curiosity. More so in a couple of years than now. Things like Corel
> Office and other products are coming down the pike that will push debian
> into the workplace and possibly prevent people from having Debian at home
> because of software support issues if the basic standards are not met.
>
> That is the point that I create a slightly modified subset of Debian that
> does conform to the standard and sell the sucker for $100 a pop to
> businesses needing a better Linux than Red Hat.
>
> George Bonser
I have to agree with George, excepting that ultimately no one can
force the developers of Debian to do things in a particular way if they
don't want to. Apparently it comes down to what is the majority opinion
among the developers: do they want Debian to have a broader appeal or
are they satisfied with it appealing only to a small high-tech clique.
I like Debian; I chose it because of the tight, sophisticated package
management that was night and day better than Slackware and slightly
better
(at the time) than RH (probably still is). Its core is OpenSource,
which to me is good, but its not hostile to other kinds of software.
I've read this thread over the last couple of days and am disturbed. I
understood from the beginning what George was saying; his example and
analogy was clear to me, i.e., those not familiar with the linux
universe might conclude that Deb uses linux v2.0 and RH uses linux
v5.1. This may seem silly at first, but I'm sure that we've all made an
incorrect (and possibly in hindsight, silly) assumption at one point in
our lives about something that we were not knowledgeable about.
Hopefully the LSB or something will provide some base reference that
can
provide prospective users a better way to compare the different
distributions, not to mention making it easier for software vendors to
support Linux. In general, without knowing the specifics of course,
it sounds like a reasonable idea, at least from reading about it on
freshmeat, it sounds reasonable.
The responses to George's suggestion were . . . interesting. I wonder
if the majority of developers share this hostility towards new users.
It would certainly have a sobering effect on my enthusiasm for Debian
(and I suspect others as well). Linux needs Debian, but Debian needs
users. The last thing I want to see is a Linux community dominated by
commercial distributions, but Debian can't succeed in the long run
without appealing to a wide user base, so as to have some influence on
the direction that Linux goes. You would think that based on the tone
of the Debian website, Debian is meant to appeal to wide array of
people. But the responses George got suggest otherwise.
--
Ed
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