[UFO Chicago] WCLUG on Thursday, January 2

[Ian Bicking]

On Sun, 2003-01-05 at 14:09, Crow Leader wrote:
> >The project is better because all changes go back into the original code.
> In
> >this case, GPL was used to stop forking and duplication of programming
> >effort.
> 
> You mean like all the different linux distributions? I don't see any
> duplicated efforts there at all. No compatibility issues either. It's sort
> of sad there are more linux distributios than versions of windows. This
> highly fragmented effort sounds like a good one for sure.

There's a lot of niche distributions of Linux, which makes sense.  A
distribution dedicated to a firewall, for instance, is quite reasonable
and does not imply duplicated effort -- only the packaging is different,
the software is usually shared among all applicable distributions.

There is also fragmentation among general purpose Linux distributions. 
There's a handful of free distributions -- RedHat, Debian, Slackware,
Gentoo, Mandrake -- the rest have proprietary code.  I would be
surprised if their proprietary code didn't have at least a little code
derived from BSD-licensed software.  

There's probably other non-proprietary general purpose distributions,
but most of them I would qualify as niche (e.g., Knoppix).  SuSE,
Xandros, Lindows, Lycoris, UnitedLinux -- all proprietary.  I don't know
about TurboLinux, Yellow Dog, or some of the other 

There is significant differentiation among the free distributions --
Progeny and Storm were like Debian, and exists no more.  Sorcerer was
like Gentoo and seems to be in trouble.  Stampede was like Slackware,
and is no more.  Mandrake and RedHat are still going at it -- whether
they can truly differentiate themselves is still to be decided.

Anyway, different distributions *are* called for, because the computer
as a system is not a solved problem.  There are a lot of different ways
to factor the operating system, and insofar as the distributions really
try different techniques, it is an important not to have consolidation. 

-- 
Ian Bicking           Colorstudy Web Development
ianb@colorstudy.com   http://www.colorstudy.com
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