On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:27 PM, David Hardy<belovedbold...@gmail.com> wrote: > The Future of CentOS and Criteria For Choosing a Business Distribution > By Caitlyn Martin
I don't think that person knows what they're talking about in this case. While Fermilab isn't going anywhere, the people who maintain Scientific Linux could loose their jobs, be transferred, or simply be ordered to stop maintaining it. It's not like SL is the raison d'etre for Fermilab; it's just a tool to them. I don't see SL as much different from CentOS in that regard. If you really want "a company" connected to your Linux distro, at least go with Ubuntu or SuSE or Fedora or some other distro which is used to directly generate a company's actual product. The company has a vested interest in keeping their product alive. And we all know that's hardly a guarantee, either. Products get discontinued for any number of reasons. Entire companies go bankrupt. Nortel, one of the biggest telecom equipment manufactures in the world, is in the process of liquidation right now. Tons of businesses have been buying their stuff for decades. Now what? I *do* think this CentOS shitstorm highlights the fact that any organization can be dysfunctional, and having a dysfunctional organization coordinating your distro isn't the greatest thing in the world. Hopefully CentOS will be cleaning up their act a bit with this; it sounds like that's already started. I'm cautiously optimistic. As another example, look at Debian. While SPI provides the legal footing a large project needs, Debian is still basically an all-volunteer effort. But Debian has a great management structure in place as far as the organization goes; things don't threaten to dissolve into chaos just because one guy goes AWOL. -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
