Arghhh, it sure is amazing how easily a point can be so taken out of context, and combined with my lack of clarity, missunderstood. I want to avoid another lengthy "clarification thread" but I felt it necessary to add a bit more info and to make a few comments.
First, someone suggested that "Popularity was a subjective measure" when I refered to there not being any RPM's of KDE 3.1 for RedHat, "the most popular distro". Actually, that is incorrect. Popularity is far from being a "subjective" measure and I think the person who wrote that actually meant "individual preference". Popularity, according to Websters means " The quality or state of being popular, especially the state of being widely admired, accepted, or sought after." And a quick review of news releases, market research and google searches will see estimates ranging from 40%-60% for RedHat's share of the Linux market. Granted most of these stats are refering to shipping volume and only occaisionally take a stab at estimating the installed base including downloads (one estimate is for each downloaded or purchased copy, 5 servers get an installation). Therefore, from a statistical perspective, "popularity" could mean "the distribution with the greatest market penetration, relative to all other distributions". And baring any bias from this or that market researcher or analyst, Gartner and IDC included, we could consider "popularity" to be a roughly objective "quantitative" measure rather than "subjective" measure. On Monday 10 February 2003 09:37, Aaron Seigo wrote: >to be fair, RH doesn't release new major versions of software in a revision >release. they wait for their own major releases to release new major versions >of packages for various reasons, among them stability and to give QA it's due >course. I didnt mean to imply that RedHat should be responsible for releasing binary's of desktops or other applications. They most certainly have their own agenda and with the release of Bluecurve, and all the dialog on this list pertaining to RedHats selective treatment of some applications, it is pretty clear that they would be unlikely to be first in line to produce any KDE RPM's. Not to mention your understanding of their major/revision release patterns. >to be fair, RH isn't the Linux community. they aren't Linux, nor are they the >community. they are one small group of members of the Linux community. Ahh, but that was my point "RH isnt the Linux Community". Since RH is the most purchased commercial version of Linux with the largest market shared based on a combination of estimates (see how I side stepped "popularity"), then it "behooves" the "Linux Community" (everyone and anyone with a vested interest in the continued growth of Linux and open-source software in the commercial and enterprise markets), to strive to improve all aspects of Linux and open-source, to present a respectable, truthful and professional image and, to take advantage of any opportunity to spread the word about, and provide access to, leading edge releases...especially the desktop environments. With all the talk recently around the world with regards to Linux on the desktop I was very surprised that a new, wiz bang release of KDE was not immediately picked up and released in binary for every possible distribution so as to make it very simple and fast for anyone running RH, or any other distro, to get their hands on a copy. And I dont mean building from source. We need to consider all the people we are trying to convince here...the ones who are most likely coming from a Windows world, or starting with computers for the first time. And even those with some familiarity of Linux would often rather get to work on the things they "use" their computers for, such as typing a thesis, building a web site, preparing a presentation, analysing some spread sheet, managing some project etc. Sure they could ./configure, oops lets go find some dependencies now, make, make install, or whatever, but what they really want is ideally, to open some GUI tool, have it tell them, "Hey there is a new KDE Desktop" with this and that new features, "Do you want to install?", click "ok" and 10 minutes later they can go back to work and see the benefits of their new wiz-bang desktop. We can take many lessons from Microsoft here. Yes they pushed, shoved and bullied most of the way to the top, but thats not all they did. They also made computers simple for new users and helped to minimize the newbie fear factor.....a bit too much in my opinion and so now many people just dont want to try any harder to learn something new or different. >to be fair, there are people working on RH 8.0 RPMs (including RH themselves). >help them out at kde-redhat.sf.net. unless, of course, you either don't >really need/care for KDE 3.1 RPMs on RH8 or aren't part of the Linux >community. Yes I deserved this one. Bitching about something that I could very well have helped with. In my own defence I have been so busy, up at 9, in bed between 2 and 4 am almost every day, and I was looking forward to a little joy in playing with a new desktop without having to lose too much time hunting down source, downloading, reading docs, building etc etc. Maybe I can give it a shot later in the week. >to be fair, not every _user_ of Linux is a member of the community. those >non-members get a Free ride, but they also don't have much say in what >happens. >to be fair, you could just build it from source (either starting with the raw >tarballs, using konstruct or even grabbing the SRPMs that are available for >KDE 3.1 on RH). or you could use a distribution that services your needs >better; many others have done just that. Hmmm.....konstruct...another KDE tool that I am sure I have seen in the menus but never checked out.... So I hope I cleared up what I was trying to get across, basically that I was suprised that more effort wasnt made to provide easy to find, easy and quick to install binaries, for a leading edge desktop release, for the distro with the largest market share, in a climate where so many big players have made such solid and financially substantial commitments to the use of Linux as a replacement for Windows. Boy what a speech.... Thanks for everyones comments, suggestions and for pointing out that, yes, I could be the one making the contribution....so I'll shut up, quit my whining and rpmbuild --rebuild *.src.rpm <hr> <b><font color=blue size=4>Open Enterprise Solutions</font></b> <b><font color=red>Linux & Open Source Solutions for Business</font></b> Johnny Stork, BA Calgary, AB Canada <a href="http://www.openenterprise.ca";> www.openenterprise.ca</a> --------------------------------------------------- The Webtop Personal Web-based Email System http://www.yourwebtop.com
