RE: Debian's public image
> First, thank you for trying to get a Debian port "official".
> Now for my opinions (=
> Linux is Linux. I get tired of seeing people say they will support
Slackware,
> or SuSE or whomever. Make a decent linux product, give a tar.gz or a
static
> bin, and move on. There should be no reason to specifically support
any one
> vendor.
> As to why they think of SuSE or RedHat the answer is simple -- they
are
> marketed products. The RH advertising even tries to blur the fact
that Red Hat
> is a brand of Linux and not Linux itself. My point is not to bash
anyone
> company but to explain why. Name branding and recognition is
important for
> commercial applications. Hence "Red Hat == Linux" so I should buy Red
Hat and
> all will be well.
> Debian seems to be a secret among the Linux users. So many of them
get roped
> in with Slackware or Red Hat they never attempt to try another
distribution.
> The cure is not simple. Debian is a cooperative effort across the
internet.
> For it to be truly recognized by the world at large would require that
which
> most of us don't want -- a business.
> However watch the free software people. The DFSG is touted as the
example of
> what free really is. I see many people refer to this document. So
yes many
> people may be missing us, but others are not (Netscape, Corel, Gwydion
to name
> a few). Many Debian people are happy to have a superior dist. without
dealing
> with marketing and bureacracy, I among them. No other group has the
e-mail
> support we do. No other group has the irc assistance we offer. I had
to use a
> RH 5.2 system today and it did not even support bzip2 (either the
command or the
> option to tar). If your company does release their product, the
slackware or
> the RH version will probably work just fine on a Debian system. A
static bin
> like netscape's is almost guaranteed to work. Keep that in mind. Of
course,
> we all want to see source, but .......
For my own 2 cents:
I think Debian is more a Linux developer toy than anything else. Mind
you, that's far from being a problem. Who'd you prefer to trust? Red
Hat's marketing guy's toy, or a source-code hacker's toy? My choice
ain't that hard.... ;)
Debian doesn't get easy 'official' support simply because companies
like to talk to companies. The problem here is not against Debian, or
Linux, or whatever. It may not even include cold cash. It's just that,
ultimately, if a company supports Debian, it gets the feeling to
support anti-corporatism behavior, to act against itself, against the
world they live in, the way they are used to think.
This gets us back to the old philosophical question: Corporation
rights against end-user rights. Big money against 'patchy,
unsupported', MONEY-UNRELATED projects, but full-working, technically
superior code. (I had to flatter ourselves a bit, didn't I? ;)
I think your company suffers from what I like to call, the blues. They
are seeing that their world is crumbling, and they just don't like it.
So they're are going have to 'revenge' (even unconciously) on Debian,
which is the Flagship of the FSF.
Christian Lavoie
P.S.: Anyone up for debian-philosophical-discussions@lists.debian.org?
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