[LUGSB] ICON Events
Sarang Lakare
sarang at users.sourceforge.net
Tue Mar 23 22:15:50 EST 2004
No.. not for a project.. but for distribution, yes. Building and maintaining a
distribution is a lot of dirty work that not too many would enjoy. Apart from
that, for recognition and use by a company, the distribution has to have a
company behind it... mainly for support. Without such backing, the
distribution would go nowhere.
Sarang
On Monday 22 March 2004 09:01 pm, Vinay Pai wrote:
> > Fedora has no company backing.. its like Debian. Its not clear if Fedora
> > will go all the way.
>
> Not to start a war, but are you implying that company backing is essential
> for an open-source project to succeed?
>
>
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarang Lakare
mailto:sarang at users#sourceforge.net
web:http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~lsarang/linux
!!Join the fight for freedom - Go GNU/Linux!!
>From sarang at users.sourceforge.net Tue Mar 23 22:23:40 2004
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From: Sarang Lakare <sarang at users.sourceforge.net>
Organization: The Freedom Movement (Linux!)
To: Linux Users Group at Stony Brook <lugsb at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Re: [LUGSB] ICON Events
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:24:00 -0500
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Yes, Fedora has backing from RedHat.. their employees are working on it, but I
really doubt if they are committed to producing a top-notch, solid
distribution in Fedora. Two clear reasons: 1. Fedora is not RedHat Linux.. so
the Fedora brand does not bother the RedHat brand, 2. If Fedora is top-notch,
sold, etc.., then why should anyone pay for RedHat? On the other hand,
Mandrake's reputation and sales are directly dependent on the quality of
their distribution.
Take example of security updates.. correct me if I am wrong, but Fedora does
not have security updates from RedHat! Also, its unclear if a previous
release of Fedora will get security updates once the next release is out.
These are very important concerns. If you want a community distribution,
there is Debian. For commercial, there is Mandrake (SUSE ISOs are not freely
downloadable, else its an option)
Another reason is availability of commercial/binary-only, 3rd party software.
I don't think any company would release and test software for Fedora.. They
would only support RedHat, Mandrake and the like.
Just my few cents.
Sarang
On Monday 22 March 2004 10:32 pm, Mark Drago wrote:
> Sarang,
>
> When I was writing up that bit on Mandrake I was thinking about you. I
> very much expected you to write up something about Mandrake. I had
> heard that Mandrake 10.0 had been released, but was unsure if it was
> available for public download yet. I ran Mandrake for a few years and
> enjoyed it very much. I just think that Fedora is in a better place
> right now. Fedora has company backing from Red Hat. A _large_ majority
> of the programmers working on Fedora are Red Hat employees. Fedora will
> be the base for what becomes Red Hat Enterprise Linux later on.
> Besides, I think that distributions that are too closely controlled by a
> company are lacking in the number of packages available for that
> distribution. This is a real problem for new users. And, to say that
> "Its not clear if Fedora will go all the way" is odd, considering that
> Mandrake just recently announced they're leaving the protection of
> bancrupty. It seems that if any distribution is "not clear" about going
> all the way, it's Mandrake. Despite all of this, I still plan on giving
> Mandrake 10.0 a try and seeing what they've accomplished in the year
> that I've been away from it. But, I don't think that I would recommend
> it to a new user right now. That's all.
>
> --Mark.
>
> On Mon, 2004-03-22 at 20:52 -0500, Sarang Lakare wrote:
> > Mandrake 10.0 is out. You might want to use that.
> >
> > Fedora has no company backing.. its like Debian. Its not clear if Fedora
> > will go all the way.
> >
> > Sarang
> >
> > On Monday 22 March 2004 08:38 pm, Mark Drago wrote:
> > > I think we would be best suited pushing Fedora Core 1 as the
> > > recommended distribution during the install-a-thon. I used to
> > > recommend both Red Hat and Mandrake, but Mandrake 9.x is a little old
> > > and I personally haven't used it in a while.
> >
> > --
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Sarang Lakare
> > mailto:sarang at users#sourceforge.net
> > web:http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~lsarang/linux
> > !!Join the fight for freedom - Go GNU/Linux!!
> > _______________________________________________
> > lugsb mailing list
> > lugsb at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
> > http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/mailman/listinfo/lugsb
>
> _______________________________________________
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sarang Lakare
mailto:sarang at users#sourceforge.net
web:http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~lsarang/linux
!!Join the fight for freedom - Go GNU/Linux!!
>From vinay at mnl.cs.sunysb.edu Tue Mar 23 23:11:56 2004
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I have to disagree with you on that. Debian is (in my opinion) the best
distribution out there and has no company backing it. Even the "unstable"
debian release tends to be far more stable than Redhat x.0 releases.
While its true that a company can pay people to do the dirty work, there a
flip side to it... a company can get caught up with pushing releases out
of the gate as fast as possible. Redhat in particular was notorious for
having their x.0 releases very rough and unstable and witing for x.1 and
x.2 to fix things.
Maybe corporates will be more comfortable with a distro that is backed by
a company, but I really don't care what the corporates use!
Vinay
On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Sarang Lakare wrote:
> No.. not for a project.. but for distribution, yes. Building and maintaining a
> distribution is a lot of dirty work that not too many would enjoy. Apart from
> that, for recognition and use by a company, the distribution has to have a
> company behind it... mainly for support. Without such backing, the
> distribution would go nowhere.
>
> Sarang
>
> On Monday 22 March 2004 09:01 pm, Vinay Pai wrote:
> > > Fedora has no company backing.. its like Debian. Its not clear if Fedora
> > > will go all the way.
> >
> > Not to start a war, but are you implying that company backing is essential
> > for an open-source project to succeed?
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > lugsb mailing list
> > lugsb at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
> > http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/mailman/listinfo/lugsb
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Sarang Lakare
> mailto:sarang at users#sourceforge.net
> web:http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~lsarang/linux
> !!Join the fight for freedom - Go GNU/Linux!!
> _______________________________________________
> lugsb mailing list
> lugsb at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu
> http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/mailman/listinfo/lugsb
>
>From aaranya at ic.sunysb.edu Wed Mar 24 01:33:03 2004
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Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 01:33:08 -0500
From: Akshat Aranya <aaranya at ic.sunysb.edu>
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Most softwares have problems with x.0 releases. If you're doing a major
release, you have probably made some drastic changes, which you cannot
possibly test as much as a million people can. Debian avoids this by
not having such a release cycle. My gripes with Debian are twofold:
1. Even the unstable branch is not new enough. This matters to me
because Linux support for my laptop is still pretty flaky, and it helps
to have the latest and greatest. Sure, the latest and greatest may not
be perfectly stable, but it is nothing more than a mild annoyance for me.
2. Sometimes it is simply much quicker and easier to just use
configuration frontends instead of reading man pages and messing with a
dozen configuration files. Commercial distros are pretty good with
their configuration tools.
Having said that, it is good to see both Red Hat and Mandrakelinux
getting more into the community development mode, Red Hat with their
Fedora and Mandrakelinux with their "Community" releases.
-Akshat
Vinay Pai wrote:
> I have to disagree with you on that. Debian is (in my opinion) the best
> distribution out there and has no company backing it. Even the "unstable"
> debian release tends to be far more stable than Redhat x.0 releases.
>
> While its true that a company can pay people to do the dirty work, there a
> flip side to it... a company can get caught up with pushing releases out
> of the gate as fast as possible. Redhat in particular was notorious for
> having their x.0 releases very rough and unstable and witing for x.1 and
> x.2 to fix things.
>
> Maybe corporates will be more comfortable with a distro that is backed by
> a company, but I really don't care what the corporates use!
>
> Vinay
>
>
>From scallana at ic.sunysb.edu Wed Mar 24 01:53:40 2004
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From: Sean Callanan <scallana at ic.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Re: [LUGSB] ICON Events
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 01:53:42 -0500
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Akshat,
> 1. Even the unstable branch is not new enough. This matters to me
> because Linux support for my laptop is still pretty flaky, and it
> helps to have the latest and greatest. Sure, the latest and greatest
> may not be perfectly stable, but it is nothing more than a mild
> annoyance for me.
Fair enough - although you can always go to the source if you really
need bleeding-edge versions of things, it is nice to have a distro that
has the bleeding-edge versions of packages. This does tend to be
somewhat better in commercial distros that see the need to have
particularly new versions of certain "key" packages (X, the kernel, the
various desktop environment) in order to get favorable reviews and a
general reputation of being "up-to-date."
Debian unstable is, nevertheless, quite current, and in general you'll
probably find that particularly with less well-known packages they're
actually more up-to-date because the maintainers for less flashy
packages are just as enthusiastic and hard-working as the maintainers
for big-name packages.
> 2. Sometimes it is simply much quicker and easier to just use
> configuration frontends instead of reading man pages and messing with
> a dozen configuration files. Commercial distros are pretty good with
> their configuration tools.
Debian has configuration tools for many files. You can manage most
important system files, including your network configuration and your X
server configuration, using debconf.
> Having said that, it is good to see both Red Hat and Mandrakelinux
> getting more into the community development mode, Red Hat with their
> Fedora and Mandrakelinux with their "Community" releases.
Red Hat has been going out of community mode, not into it. I see Fedora
as little more than a "community edition" of RHEL, less powerful than
the Enterprise versions by design (they want to sell software, not
services, so good business sense dictates that the software they sell
must be better than the software they give away).
Red Hat used to be much better, and coordinated a lot of good MLs and
CVSes (some of which they got from Cygnus). They also ran SPARC and
Alpha ports that were very popular and did a lot for these platforms. I
don't think it's "good to see" what they've done recently; they're
certainly not a proprietary software company with some OSS leanings
like Sun or Apple, but they're also not as committed to open-source as
they used to be.
> -Akshat
Sean.
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