[Linux-aus] Uniting Linux - good or bad?

[Anthony Towns]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 07:36:19AM +1000, Pia Smith wrote:
> So to kick this off:
> - Is the growing number of Linux's its strength, or its weakness?

Yes.

It's a strength in that it means that Linux users can usually find a
distro that closely matches their needs rather than having to put up
with a one-size fits all solution that doesn't; and it's a weakness in
that it's an extra complication for people (like vendors and sysadmins)
who have to deal with the different systems.

The free software community has other strengths that further mitigate
the weakness there though -- in particular if one distro comes up with a
good idea, the others can steal it while maintaining the differences that
their users value. Consider the adoption of "apt-get" amongst RPM-based
distros, or the way hardware detection tools get copied from one distro
to another, or the way everyone tends to contribute back to upstream
projects like Gnome, X, glibs or the kernel.

That's why you'll only see different versions of Windows for major niches
(like desktop vs server vs embedded), whereas you'll see many different
versions of Linux for all sorts of different niches (developers, schools,
corporate, community based, big networks, small networks, old PCs,
recovery...): we can handle the complexities that introduces, and the
Windows world can't. That ability's one of the things we get for trading
our IP rights away by putting our work under an open source license.

Well, that's my theory, YMMV.

> - Has anything like this been tried before? Are you skeptical or not?

The LSB's been coming RSN for ages; it's still a good idea that's only
getting better, but it hasn't actually succeeded yet. Think of it like a
car bogged in sand, wheels spinning furiously -- not going anywhere at the
moment, maybe, but as soon as it gets the right traction, it's outta here.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
Don't assume I speak for anyone but myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
  for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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