Re: Debian too difficult, Red Hat?
>
> On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Richard E. Hawkins Esq. wrote:
>
> > But it comes down to "GNU/Linux" being a political statement, and one
> > that I disagree with.
> >
> > rick
> >
>
> Agreed. I tend to use GNU/Linux only when talking about Debian because
> that is what Debian calls their product. Much energy is wasted in
> political debates about the various levels of freeness of things. Reminds
> me of arguments about angels on pins.
Personally I don't understand why people are offended by GNU/linux.
Just start counting the number of gnu programs in debian, and see how
important they are. There is the gnu compiler that made linux possible
in the first place, there is bison and flex, there are the gnu file
utils, there is gnu diff and friends, there is gnu libc, most of the
programs that form the core of debian _are_ gnu stuff. What is the
problem that this is reflected in the name? Why are you so offended if
the Free Software Foundation asks for some recognition for these
programs, that they still maintain? The GNU in debian's name reflects
the factual presence of lots of gnu programs in the core of debian, it
is not a political statement in the first place, it is recognition for
real work done.
> I do not use Debian because of their political philosophy, I use it
> because of its technical merits. If anything, their political stance
> diminishes the utility of the distribution. It turns pine into pain, for
> example.
Please check out the mail list archives on pine. The pine people will
not allow binaries of pine distributed with bugs fixed unless they
officially approve. To approve officially means a lengthy process.
They are their own license PITA.
> If forced to choose politics (or as RMS would call it
> "psycho-social" issues) over utility, politics will loose. I am not
> against proprietary software, I am against bad software. I will not use a
> bad free product when a good non-free product is available. If software is
> good and free, so much the better.
Think for a while which of the free unices is having the biggest
attention now. Is it one of the BSD-s? No, it is linux. The reason
for this is that it has been released under the GPL, and that it
integrates with all the GPL-ed unix utils from the FSF. This ensures
developpers maximum freedom to do what they want in the long run. It is
no fun to develop software in your free time that has to stay
proprietary and is controlled by external forces. It is no fun to have
to sign non-disclosure agreements to use certain programming tools, or
to have to pay license fees if you would want to make some money out of
the programs you wrote yourself. On the long run most good programmers
prefer GPL-ed programs, because it puts them in control, and allows them
to construct the best system without compromises. The GPL ensures this,
gnu/linux is GPL-ed, and therefore came out as the most popular free
unix with the most software and the best hardware support.
Politics _do matter_. Debian is the distribution which is most aware of
this, which is the reason they are the best, IMHO :)
HTH,
Eric Meijer
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
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