Re: Debian and Redhat - are most linux users missing the point?
mike shupp wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Ed Cogburn wrote:
>
> > Like George Bonser has said previously, I think the only way that
> > Debian is going to grow its market share better than its currently
> > growing is for the creation of a commercial company which adopts
> > Debian as its base distribution. This company can provide
> > corporate support to enhance Debian's position in the corporate
> > world, and improve the install and maintenance of the system, by
> > adding new software which isn't a priority for current Debian
> > developers....
>
> I dunno. There's a lot of people who would like to find out about
> Linux, but aren't prepared to bet the whole farm on it sight unseen.
Without advertising, how are we supposed to get to these
prospective customers before RH does?
> They'll pay say 1100 bucks for a white box PII machine with Windows 98
> installed without a qualm however (I did anyhow a couple months ago).
> Would they demur at paying say 1115 dollars for the same machine with
> Win 98 on one partition and Debian on another? Of course not-- and
> some dealers would even think "WINDOWS AND LINUX!!!" worthy of
> advertising.
Short of DOJ intervention, M$ has made sure the OEMs don't ship
their machines with anything other than a M$ OS. Even the dealers
don't dare advertise their support of Linux, for fear of M$
retribution. We have to understand their position; they are
*scared* of M$ revenge tactics.
> I don't see any great problem getting Debian onto a million new boxes,
> in other words, if someone takes the trouble to assure PC sellers
What I was talking about was a market share 'gain' that would
mean we could keep up with RH, and not simply end up being
ignored. I don't know what the actual numbers are.
> that installing Debian is simple and easy and exceptionally cheap.
I thought there was something of a consensus that Deb wasn't as
easy to install as RH? Although I like it, I can understand the
complaints about dselect.
> There'd be a potential problem dealing with newby customers who had
> Debian on their systems and weren't quite hip on the subject of
> Linux, but that's another issue.
Your thinking of the personal user, which isn't Linux's
strongsuit right now. Corporate customers are looking at the
Calderas and RedHatters of the Linux distributions. Without
commercial support, they won't even bother to *look* at Debian.
Without the attention of the corporate world, Debian won't get
enough advertising, or word of mouth, to become a player in the
end user market (whenever it develops).
--
Ed C.
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