[SLUG] Vendor Specifics

From: Russell Hires (rhires@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun May 27 2001 - 09:17:28 EDT


It's ironic that we can still have vendor specific software, even though
it's all open source. I think RedHat is on to something here. In other
words, "So what if it's open source?" Too many people don't know enough
about code to be able to make changes to make it compatible, anyway.
Then there's the versions (a la RedHat) that aren't 'standard,' which
once again creates a problem for the average user/admin. They have to
keep up with what RedHat is doing. And then they have to buy from
RedHat. Kinda like some other company we know. The only difference here
is that once RedHat makes a release, you are only bound to buy one copy
then you can sell it for less. But what if you're a big company that has
a contract with RH? Are you still forced to "upgrade?" What would the
contract be for, anyway? Service and support? Could you just buy a
support contract from RH, but not the software? Would they support you
if you bought a "non-official" version of the same thing RH was selling?
(In other words, once RH makes their release official, someone buys a
copy, then, because of the GPL, sells it to you for less, or free, but
it didn't come directly from RH's CD factory) Interestingly, the GPL
does support this sort of behavior, IMHO. It is very capitalistic. OTOH,
this sort of behaviour flies in the face of the GPL, because the GPL was
supposed to take some of the power away from the "Mages" (who kept code,
and therefor power, a secret) and put it in the hands of everybody.

Russell

____________________________________________________
_its_ (no apostrophe) means "the thing that it owns"
_it's_ (with apostrophe) means "it is"

----------
>From: Paul M Foster <paulf@quillandmouse.com>
>To: slug@nks.net
>Subject: Re: [SLUG] I'm back
>Date: Sun, May 27, 2001, 1:48
>

> On Sat, May 26, 2001 at 06:53:03PM -0400, Glen Canaday wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> So here's my dilemma - has anyone solved the problem of compiling qt
> without
>> internal compiler errors on the first try? Surely trolltech can't be
>> releasing code they haven't test compiled, but that's exactly what it looks
>> like.
>>
>
> A guess. First, distro vendors tweak rpms for their distros, precisely
> so they work with their distros. Which implies they may not work without
> distro vendor tweaks. Second, it may be that the other libraries etc.
> have to be at a certain rev for it to compile right.
>
> HTH,
>
> Paul



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