... the point I was trying to make in the message was that there were some less than perfect aspects to the report, and that he should maybe take a little more care and get his opinions from a wider range of sources.I agree that apache, perl + OO are apps, not OS, but that's purely a boring argument. Look at MS and then have fun figuring out the difference. I doubt that a newbie cares, if I was one I wanted something which works, and what is a kernel anyway? The main point is the license, and that is approx the same for kernel + utilities + apps. Just call the whole lot Linux, everything else is too complicated to explain. There's no point in risking to perpetuate the myth that Linux is complicated.
Volker
I disagree on the "calling it all Linux" though. Having people know that there is Apache (OpenOffice, The GIMP, Mozilla, etc), and it is very widely used on both Linux and other proprietary OSes is good for Linux, because people need to know that there are /applications/ for them to use on their system, and they are the best. I agree that most people don't want to know about kernels and stuff but that's just the point - they want to know that there is more than just an OS on a Linux distro. They need to know that for $0 (or $3 if you burn some CDs) they can have all the applications they are ever likely to need. Because the fact that one can "recompile the kernel" or whatever just doesn't interest them. They want to know that there is a "version" of Outlook, a "version" of IE, a "version" of media player, etc. On this we agree. Too many people know that Linux is just (part of anyway) the OS, so we need people to know that a distro has EVERYTHING they need. They can get lots from the web, but they don't have to.
Cheers
Anton
