On Wednesday 28 December 2005 05:32 pm, Robin 'Roblimo' Miller wrote:
> > But I've told you before, Debian (despite the nifty new installer) is
> > not a distro I would recommend to people who don't have experience
> > with Linux distros. That's why they make things like Linspire and
> > Mepis and Xandros, all of which are based on Debian. The installs are
> > nice and GUI, and you're asked a minimum of hard questions. They have
> > little one-click software installers that make it easy for users to
> > install or upgrade software.
>
> And Warren is now dedicated to making MEPIS 100% compatible with Debian
> unstable and at least "mostly compatible" with stable instead of trying
> to move away from the Debian "core" to increase uniqueness. There's been
> a strong learning curve here for him in a business sense over the last
> two years. The biggest lesson is that all the marketing people who say
> they will make him millions and save him all sales effort if he lets
> them distribute his work through retail channels as a boxed product are
> full of [redacted], but that plenty of folks are willing to pay a
> reasonable subscription fee for access to reliable MEPIS servers full of
> apps that all work together nicely, plus maybe some nice add-on
> utilities and intelligent menu defaults and pre-installed themes,
> backgrounds and such, and some popular non-free apps like Flash,
> RealPlayer, Adobe's pdf reader thing included and ready to run -
> basically everything in place for a complete "consumer-level" computer
> experience *plus* the option of dipping into the Debian pool instead of
> being confined to the MEPIS app pool.
>
> In other words, sell convenience. But don't wall off the deep end of
> the pool, just have a little marker that tells where it begins so
> non-swimmers don't get in over their heads by mistake. Use the power of
> the MEPIS user community to decide what apps should be on the "simply"
> CD, which should be on additional CDs, and which ones work well enough
> that even if they aren't popular enough to be on the CDs, should be on
> the MEPIS servers and can be supported by Warren and his (now 2, soon 3)
> coworkers.
>
> End result = MEPIS is maturing into a small, niche company that will
> never take the world by storm, but will provide a decent income level
> for its founder and employees and allow them to spend most of their time
> doing what they like and dealing with nice people instead of being
> controlled by marketers and investors who put them under constant
> pressure to make millions -- for the marketers and investors.
>
> An interesting experiment....
>
> - Robin
>
Hi Robin
Thanks for the news and update but you may want to consider this from the
prospective of my original post.
Namely if you are a computer techie you don't need a chimerical distribution
and thus are completely unwilling to pay to support one.
If you are a gamer and media type whose only interest is in the content then
you have little interest in which operating system is being used mainly as it
is mostlikely embedded and you don't even see it. The same concept applies to
some very high level products such as controllers for power line 550 KV high
voltage switches. As much as I can an I am a old time expert is this stuff I
can not figure out what operation system is being used by several
manufactures and it doesn't matter.
If you are a major corporation you have an IT department who has the ability
to role their own. In fact they may be principal developers in the over all
process. So, you certainly do not expect these people to support sales of
commercial linux.
Thus, who needs the product and has an inability to do it themself?
You may also recall that two, SuSE and Mandrake of the three [add in Red Hat}
major commercial Linux distributions have gone bankrupt in the last two and
that the third has skimmed bankruptcy. This is no accident.
What product mix do these alleged titians of the IT world bring to the market
and at whom is it focused? Basically SuSE focus has been toward business. Now
consider that one of the big items that business uses is a MySQL server it
can only be viewed as the high of total complete incompetence that you would
deliver a product to your principal client base that is knowling so defective
that it is nonfunctional by the intended user.
For the techie types on this list that simply do not get it consider this this
way. Some body offers you a job working a a firm 30 miles away whose only
access to is by car. You have just purchased a car from Cheap Charlies Used
Cars since it is the only one you can afford. Now cheap charlie gives you all
the car but he puts the clutch, yes some of you recall those old things,
pressure plate on the back seat telling you that you will have to install it
yourself. First, you have no tools. Second, you have never repaired a car
especially removing a transmission. So off you go to the old tech support
group where the answer to your questions is that if you are not techie enough
to repair the car then it is just to bad that you can not get to work. AND!
BY THE WAY DON"T BITCH THAT YOU PAID CHEAP CHARLIE FOR A COMPLETE FUNCTIONAL
CAR AND DID"T GET ONE. [There have been several posting on this list of this
caliber.]
The equation is very simple with commercial Linux. These distributions will
compose and distribute quality products that meed the needs of the people
willing to buy their product or they will go the way of the dodo bird i.e.
bankrupt. Personally I know that if a product does not meet my needs I am not
going to buy it and the product that commercial linux is delivering is the
resolution of all the technical issues that non tackies need resolved in
order operate the system.
For some non tackies that is full hand holding. For others it is the
resolution of dependencies and package types. For others it is writing
special programs.
For those tackies that still just don't get it. There is not one person
including Linus himself that has full and complete knowledge of all aspects
of Linux. That level was a long time ago where one person could know all
aspects of Linux. So the question is not one of individuals not needing help
but how much help does someone need. And, as stated above some need little or
none some need a lot. Commercial linux is the medium in which that help is
provided for with a high degreed of need and a low knowledge of how to.
Frank
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