Franck Martin wrote:
> I liked the system of Walnut, where you could subscribe for several years to
> slackware or other CDs.
>
> I think Mandrake should do that online, where you receive automatically the
> new version of Mandrake in the post. Nothing Fancy just the CDs in an
> envelope. For us couch potatoes or people who don't have a convenient store
> nearby, you subscribe online to Mandrake and/or Mandrake cooker for 2 years,
> which will give you 2-3 versions of Mandrake
>
>
Let me point a few things that people may not be noting. Yeah there are
great ideas being posted here. But also a lot of stereotypes. And myths...
First Linux is still under development.
As anyone ever talked about a stable Linux? Tell me where Linus or
anyone has ever talked about this. Most that concerns him is the
stability of a damn piece of software called kernel. On does not make a
point on anything else. Get the road you want and go over it. So
speaking about stable Linuxes is the same as asking for the "Bright
Future" of Communists. Let me note this. You are doing the same error of
some communists, by extrapolating things over its limits. Marx wrote a
damn book and spoke about tendencies for society and Man. And
ideologists picked it up and extrapolate that we should wait for the
"Bright Future". Sorry, but Linux is more a mix of Capitalism and
Trotskism. Nothing is permanent here except the "permanent revolution".
Worse, nothing is fully stable and gets a guarantee to keep its place
for long. Not even the kernel. If anyone comes with a better kernel (I
wouldn't put Hurd here) then the whole thing may well change its name
from "Linux".
All we can talk is about stable trends. One such trend is a distro, like
Mandrake. And we come into the second myth. Clients should wait for support.
Cool who tells you they should wait for it? Right now, I am not talking
about Mandrake but the whole mess around that piece of kernel. Who tells
you that Linux should have client support? Linux is a mess. And in this
mess there are no providers or clients. In terms of a general principle.
I would like to remind a small doc considered to be one of the main
"Letters of principle" of this community: "The Cathedral and the
Bazaar". Go read it to refresh some ideas. Now we go back to Mandrake.
Some may go over this principle. We are a free community and market.
Much more free than RMS wishes... So some, like Caldera, RedHat,
Mandrake, may position a different ruleset in their relation with a
segment of the community. And set their relation more in a form of
provider/client basis. But no one states the base of this relation.
Absolutely no one. Some came here to bash Mandrake for "unsupporting"
support except on security. Yeah, it's bad, it may be a market failure
for MandrakeSoft. But no one got the point of reminding that
MandrakeSoft is the one only company shooting distros faster than anyone
else. On the area MS (NOT M$) is this is the most correct form to act. A
desktop user needs more a stable system wholescale than in servers.
There are lots of factors for this, but it would take 200 pages to state
them. I will only remind one. We have a server working for 1,5 year with
several things in shambles after a damn electrical blackout. But we can
handle it because we are experts and we know how to keep the critical
services working. A average user without any knowledge of the inners of
this stuff would immediately jump outta the window. Or be hanged by the
crowd after reinstalling the system... Now on a desktop system this is
completely different. User does NOT want to deal with details. He SURELY
will NOT wish to deal with patches, upgrades and other stuff that surely
will add a few more features to the system but also endanger its
stability. Let me tell you one thing. We have an history of two desktop
Linux systems here. And I have seen the following thing coming. You made
a new workstation, you patch and upgrade for a year until you get a new
fresh system ready. In the first three monthes patches and upgrades may
help on something. On the next three-six monthes you only see how things
start crumbling down. Further than six monthes one should THINK VERY
HARD before doing even a security patch. That's what happens when you
deal with users. Because no one would like to dig down to find the
reason why KDE got slower or X started crashing or Netscape freezing.
These details are not average users.
Mandrake stepped over this market to cover the user desktop world. And
its point of choice is technically the correct one. However I am not
saying that users should not wait for support. Good, let's give them
that. But, on the base of what I stated above, I can come into only one
point on how this support should be made: pay, pay well, and get it.
Because MS should pick up its stable distros and make smaller "cookers"
out of them. So that users may be sure that they get something really
stable. Anyway, MS can only give chance for such support for a year, no
more. Pushing support later than this will turn into a Hell. Bugs and
features coming from intermediary upgrades have a tendency to grow
geometrically. Sometimes they come in a horde, specially in library or
kernel upgrades.
So I put a question for the "upgrade wishers". What you most want,
stability or features? If you want stability then don't ask for X 4.0.2
or glibc 2.2. Yeah you may ask for KDE 2.0.1 because it is mostly a bug
fixing release and surely MS team missed a point here. However, if you
want features and do not want to wait for the next release (even that MS
is shooting distros every 4-5 monthes) then I think you should give some
money for this. Anyway don't get too optimistic. As you will be forced
to upgrade things wholescale in a year. And don't blame MS. This is on
the nature of Linux world itself. Here we have a capitalist "permanent
revolution". As one linuxist said once - "Welcome to the eternal Beta".
Anyway, if you don't like this I think that there are other distros that
may give you some better intermediary support. But I would like to note
that the large majority is not as progressive and fashioned as Mandrake.
And some are tremendously conservative on changing some stuff. So this
is an Occam's razor. You have two choices, either you patiently wait for
a new fresh oiled and speedy Mandrake or you get a good general
maintenance where the mechanic will do anything except changing your
engine. What is better? Frankly I think the first is much better for
users, specially after MS guys got some nerve on improving the upgrade
system. Not perfect, still raw in some points, but it does not crunch
your computer. At least three last distro upgrades I did, went smoother
and smoother.
Ektanoor
