-----Original Message----- From: Bill Hacker Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 10:42 AM
[ Snip ]
IMNSHO, the community *needs* and should value Linux-archy for the creativity it fosters, even if we choose to run the results of that on *BSD, OS X, or OS/2 for stability.
Ummm... it might be worth noting that this last observation is not supportable by any objective evidence; when both IBM and SGI (to name but two) will happily sell you large Linux-based commercial solutions, vague assertions about so-called instability lack much credence...
A) 'Taint *about* "stability" - it is about choice of a common-meet-point that is somewhat less of a moving-target. The Linices dynamism is both virtue and vice from a distribution-of-common-code wiewpoint.
B) IBM has historically been the world's largest distributor of Microsoft OS'es too. So their presence is not necessarily a vote for quality or stability at all <G>.
At least with Linux, IBM have full access to the codebase - but that work is still, as you said "sold", not "donated' - along with the hardware to run it on and *serious* support contracts.
C) So all I read into IBM's choice of either NT or Linux, and their eventual dropping of OS/2 - is that they are doing what they are legally bound to do - maximizing their service and support revenue stream for their stockholders. Hardware-wise, Linux also lets them sell an expensive box more easily, which helps lock in the customer even if the OS has not.
Which - as RedHat are also accountable to stockholders - one has to appreciate. In fact, it seems a necessary move w/r SuSE+Novell market positioning.
- But I suspect RH's move may signal the beginning of a major contraction w/r 'commercial' packaging of Linux at the consumer end in general. Ubiquitous broadband + MS dominance...
Possibly, but the fact of Fedora suggests that in practice what Redhat is trying to achieve is proper brand-recognition for their commercial (supported) packaging -- priced much lower than MS's equivalent -- and to avoid consumer confusion between the no-charge versions and the supported versions.
Even though there *may* not be significant differences between / among them (who tracks *that*, BTW?), we can't realistically expect courier builds to be tested on all of them right away. Up to the user community, as always, meaning 'someday, maybe'... So long as Sam is using RH/Fedora, he is at least where outsiders *think* the Linux "mainstream" lies - but I am not sure if that is actually true. Most of the Linux folks I know use Debian.With what? 100+? distros of Linux now, sure wish we could entice Sam to move to the *BSD's as a dev platform.
Why? You've stated an excellenet reason why *not*, which is the 100+ Linux distributions!
That I don't know. I think there has been a lot of pretty succesful effort to make Linux portability such easier / more compatible, (FreeBSD includes the RH package manager for example) - but I seem to see divergence as well, such as the apparently fundamental difference between the way Debian and RedHat handle packages.I haven't needed to install or turn on the Linux-binaries interface in FreeBSD in nearly two years now, and suspect that moving a build/tarball/RPM from *BSD back to Linux would be at least as easy as the reverse...
Possibly, but that's not the issue: would it be as easy as moving from Linux to Linux?
That said, it is a really rare tarball that I can build on FreeBSD, even if it is not an official port.
Side issue - We may see some good tools come out of Apple as they are putting a lot of effort into improving porting so as to try to make OS X more attractive.
I know a lot of this is pure religion, and I am well aware of a number of the virtues of some of the BSD variants; but I am also aware of some of the virtues of OS/2, DR/DOS, CPM, RSX-11, RSTS/E, VMS, DOS/370 etc. and recognize that *despite* those virtues, the mainstream went elsewhere...
> > Malc.
Not really 'religion', I hope! - open source should hopefully encourage 'open mind' as well. <G>
Anyway - it is up to Sam, *he* is the one who as to do the code smithing and build after build.
The overall environment that best supports that for him may be 'none of the above'. FWIW, I find that I now use the PowerBook & 'Panther' in preference to OS/2 Warp 4.5 or a local 'Beastie' box - both on far heavier' hardware than the Mac, but in any case, am ssh'ed to FreeBSD boxen - usually two to four at a time, plus lots of browser panes checking docs... etc..... and that is just faster and easier on the PowerBook. And I used to *really dislike* Macs....
Productivity tools are very personal choices - which, thankfully, we *N*X'ers still have..<G>
Bill
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