Re: [SLUG] [semi-rant] Debian, DFSG, Gentoo and .NET

From: Chad Perrin (perrin@apotheon.com)
Date: Wed Jul 28 2004 - 17:57:45 EDT


Derek Glidden wrote:
>
> blah blah blah

For someone that claims to be sick of the Debian "politics" and so on, you sure
do a bang-up job of politicizing everything that wanders into your field of
view. Debian is "bad". Corba is "bad". Microsoft (other than .NET's CLR) is
"bad".

Aside from the fact that Debian works in a very helpful, painless, slick manner,
I'd say that your complaint about wanting something that "just works" is no
complaint against Debian. Considering that, if you want to, you can compile
code to your heart's content in Debian as in any other (non-proprietorized)
Linux distro, the assertion that compiling your own apps is the reason to go
with Gentoo is not applicable. What do you think "apt-get source" is for?

Gentoo, from what I understand, has a great mechanism for compilation of OS and
application code. That's wonderful. If you want to compile everything all the
time, Gentoo might be the way to go for you. If you don't, it may not.

I've seen/heard people complain about Debian's dedication to keeping its core
software archives free as though it limits users in any way. The irony, of
course, is that it doesn't. There are non-free apt repositories all over the
place. In fact, debian.org maintains non-free archives comparable to those
non-free software archives maintained by many other major distros. All you have
to do to access them is copy a couple of lines in your sources.list and add
"non-free" to the text of it. Voila. You can now install non-free packages.

All Debian does is make damn sure that you have to knowingly choose to use
non-free packages in order to end up with them. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Some people like the way RedHat works (now Fedora and RHEL). Some prefer SuSE.
  There are even those that like Lindows/Linspire. When you really get into the
guts of the Linux community, you tend to run up against hardcore devotees of
Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo, and if you really want to get hairy there's the
"roll your own" fanatics. Each has its benefits. Each has its detriments.
Personally, I don't want to get locked into having to sit around for three days
just to install an OS. You're welcome to it. I like Debian.

I even like Debian's politics, but I'm not picking a fight over it.
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