Re: Debian goes big business? [was: Re: Suggestion for RedHat (was: RH vs Debian)]
I hope no one gets angry at me for reviving this thread, but I'm just now
reading it and I think this could be an important issue.
Christian Lavoie (clavoie@enter-net.com) wrote:
> My point is that this company would one day tries ot improve it's
> revenues and influence the Debian distribution to fits its needs. Look
> at the recent discussions about whether to ship Slink as i386 only, or
> to wait until m68k and others are ready. If Debian had been
> commercially distributed by a company, the choice wouldn't be taken on
> a 'How can this help the Debian dists and end-users' basis, but on a
> 'How can we get the most bucks' basis.
>
You're thinking in traditional terms. Someone decides these issues now,
right? Those exact same people would be in charge of this corporation.
They would not be interested in the bottom line, but in what's best for
Debian. The word "corporation" scares a lot of people because of what it's
come to represent. But how a corporation is run is decided internally.
Just because there aren't any democratic corporations doesn't mean we
can't start one.
This new democratic Debian corporation could sell shrink-wrapped Debian
CDs right next to Red Hat CDs, hopefully cheaper. Combined with Debian's
advantages over Red Hat and word-of-mouth, Debian could possibly eclipse
Red Hat. Even if it doesn't become the best-selling distro, it could still
sell enough to give the developer's jobs. I'm not sure if this would be
considered a for-profit corporation or not. No one's really raking in any
profit, most of the money is going back into Debian and paying for the
packaging and such, but some people are getting paid, so I'm not sure.
I can see only two changes in Debian due to this corporation. Development
would (presumably) go faster because the developers are getting paid, and
Debian would become more well-known.
I also liked the idea that someone suggested earlier, that people could
pay dues into this corporation and get a vote. A democratic corporation
indeed.
This may sound radical, but we'll never know if it will work unless we
try, will we?
/----------------------------------------------------------\
| pretzelgod | epgilles@olemiss.edu |
| (Eric Gillespie, Jr.) | epg@pretzelnet.cx |
|---------------------------<*>----------------------------|
| "That's the problem with going from a soldier to a |
| politician: you actually have to sit down and listen to |
| people who six months ago you would've just shot." |
| --President John Sheridan, Babylon 5 |
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