On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 10:59, awyatt@fewt.com wrote:
>
> I'm glad that's the case. Weren't they considering per box licensing
> some time ago? Who other than you supports SUSE in the area? If you sell
> SUSE to this school system and you decide to take your business and
> leave the state, who will support them? Maybe it's just that buy
> American side that says to give RH another chance, and stay as far from
> deb/slack as you can. (Unless they have dedicated support staff.)
And that is sad.
> > I'll offer local support for SuSE! ...
>
> LOL, I'm not going to disagree with that, however it's not the point.
> This school is very likely not going to be able to take care of itself
> for some time. If you want to offer to support SUSE, hey that's great,
> but who are you? Will you have time to drop whatever you are doing and
> run to them when the server pukes? I highly doubt it.
This is why the contributors to this particular project should use the
distribution they feel most comfortable with. Honestly, I prefer debian,
but if I'm not going to have the time over the next year to help them
more than a few hours in my forever decreasing "free time", who am I to
dictate the distro?
> > This argument also highlights a weakness that could destroy Linux as a
> > viable corporate platform. If people are focusing on any distro(even
> > my beloved SuSE) to the point where the fact that a system is RedHat
> > or SuSE or Debian is more important than the fact that it is Linux,
> > then the wonderful robustness of the community turns into a
> > fragmented fork-fest. Look at the
>
> I disagree completely. If Debian, Suse, RedHat, Mandrake and every other
> Linux distributor out there would fall in line and support a standard
> the point of this discussion would be moot. However, RedHat is *THE*
> distribution all of the big boys are supporting. That's just how it
> is.
What is their competitive edge in doing so? Why do I even care? ;)
Companies should use Linux based on merit, how well it solves a business
need.
There is a large business backing in the states for RedHat, I'll agree.
> UNIX fragmentation of the 70's and 80's; it can happen to Linux if we let it.
Nah. I don't see it that way. The kernel is the kernel is the kernel.
The GPL tools are forever evolving. In fact, I tend to think of Linux as
an amorphous blob of bleeding edge GPLed software that happens to be
packaged and shipped in different branded boxes. It really doesn't
matter.
Linux is as fragmented as it is likely to get. There are *hundreds* of
distributions, most of them so small as to be generally ignored. Anyone
can make their own "distribution". It's just a standard kernel with
different user-space tools. That's it. Nothing more.
UNIX fragmentation was before Internet time. It happened over decades.
Fragmentation now happens spontaneously - whenever someone decides to
create their own distribution.
> The major distributors are allowing it to happen. Take UnitedLinux,
> when did they invite RH? Not months, but days before they announced
>. Sorry, RH contributes more to Linux than all of the other distribtion
> houses combined. (IMHO)
I'm forever disgusted with RH's submissions back to the core packages.
The sheer number of "fixes" and patches that never make it back to the
original authors of numerous GPLed packages really bothers me. Have you
tried getting support for a RH patched linux kernel on the lkm list?
Good luck.
Yeah, they help grow the market, and I'm all for that, but it's so
decidedly corporate that it rubs me the wrong way.
> > Tying your companies fortunes to RedHat is no safer than tying your
> > companies fortunes to Microsoft. One of our strengths used to be,
> > "It
>
> I disagree, we are talking open solutions not closed proprietary garbage
> that comes out of software houses such as MS.
Redhat still gives me source code. With source code, I can support it.
> Linux is Linux is a kernel created in 1991. Sure, it'll survive.
> No one is arguing that.
I'll argue that it will continue to "evolve" as it has been. It is not
merely "surviving". It is improving. If it ever stops doing so, it will
perish. The community will not allow for stagnation, not on Internet
time.
> Since when does an RHCE not have to be educated? (Hint, that's what
> you are emplying.) No RHCE will ever be crippled because they are
> working on an open system.
Or, rather, they should not be. This isn't to say that it isn't possible
for a RHCE to have vendor tunnel-vision. However, for what it is worth,
I've yet to meet a clueless RHCE so crippled in this regard.
> Linux is Linux, I am a Linux Guru that enjoys a large paycheck.
Lucky bugger.
> Linux is Linux, and I will continue to support the Distribution that
> everyone else uses so I will continue to get a large paycheck.
I'd like to get me some of that action ;)
> In all my years as a Linux person (Circa 1996), I have only ever
> heard of *1* SUSE installation and it was on a personal machine.
Oh, I hear of many of them. Primarily mainframe installations. IBM is
huge on SuSE/S390.
It's also suprising the number of SLUG members that run SuSE. I'm not a
bit proponent of any RPM distro, particularly SuSE, but it DOES have a
huge following (much much larger than RedHat in fact, primarily in
Europe).
> Every other system I have come in contact with was RedHat based with
> the exception of the short stint watching Progeny Debian puke on
> itself as I was testing it on a Netfinity 4500.
You mean the kernel puking. This is why real admins hand-build their own
kernels tuned to the hardware.
I'm not one to go whining to a vendor to fix my broken kernel. I'd much
rather build a vanilla Linus kernel tuned for my hardware and report it
on lkml with a stack trace and thorough debug of the module in question
(if I didn't already find an answer on Google Groups with a few simple
searches).
> The market isn't wrong, RedHat is larger than all the other Linux
> houses out there combined for a reason.
Many would argue that SuSE is the largest. Just from sheer bulk (5000+
packages on 6 CDs), SuSE does reign supreme ;)
> No, Windows is a commie plot from within. ;-)
Windows is a Monopoly of the software marketplace devised by a visionary
with the foresight to understand the VALUE of said software. At the
time, this was true. The market, however, is rapidly changing.
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> <ian@blenke.com>
http://ian.blenke.com
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