Kelly Miller wrote:
Fedora (I believe) are promoting what in the long term is the right
way to go (IMHO). Time will tell if it is truly the correct
approach(/treatment).
It's been more than a decade now (if you count fedora as an extension
of the earlier RH model) and it just continues to help the monopoly
make more money. Doesn't someone define insanity as expecting
different results from continuing to do the same thing?
Ahem, last time I checked, the goal of GNU/Linux was not to break the
monopoly, but to create the best free software-based system that can be
made. So uh, how does including non-free components help with that
goal?
Most of the contributions to open source software have come from people
who use it in one way or another, or from commercial companies who have
decided for their own reasons to add open licenses to the code they own.
Anything that increases the user base will almost certainly increase
the contributor base. And making it easy to obtain all needed software
would help increase the user base.
I have to agree with RMS' statements on that respect; it isn't
worth having GNU/Linux replace Windows if it turns into a closed system
equivalent to Windows itself. What kind of "victory" is that?
First of all, if any virus-spewing Microsoft box can be converted to run
stable, well-tested, standards-conforming software instead, it is a
victory for everyone on the internet. But open source can never 'turn
into' a closed system. The only scenario that might even come close to
that would be if some system were so much better that everyone would
choose it instead - which would also be a victory for everyone having
that choice.
And uh, for all your posts about the stability of the system, I have to
wonder why you're not running Debian stable. AFAIK, that is the only
distro line that is guaranteed to work without any bugs of any kind,
mainly because it's years behind the others...
There are 2 kinds of stability - one is unchanging and can be good for
interfaces. The other is reliability. Fedora has neither.
Asking why 3rd party stuff doesn't work when they're considered outside
the system is a little odd, wouldn't you say?
No, I wouldn't say that. As with any other operating systems, I expect
to be able to run other programs on it.
It isn't Fedora's fault
that VMWare's sytem doesn't work with it; ask VMWare why, since the
stuff is set up by them.
When the same program works on one version of an operating system but
not on another, there's nothing to ask. The operating system has
clearly failed to provide a usable interface.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
