Verily I say unto thee, that Matt spake thusly:
> Moshe Goldfarb. wrote:
>> I also think that the number of Linux distributions is complicating
>> the situation.
>
>
> Yes, it is a hindrance
A hindrance to what?
Domination and corporate control?
Please tell me you haven't now joined the ranks of the brain-dead and
totalitarian anti-choice fanatics, in a somewhat misguided desire for
"popularity" instead of Freedom.
Ultimately all that matters is the availability of upstream packages.
The means by which they are integrated into a distro, or how they are
configured, does not somehow impede the development and use of those
packages. In fact it is specifically /because/ of distro choice that
certain packages are available at /all/, because they started life as
something specific to one distro or another, e.g. Yellow Dog Updater,
Modified (YUM), which is now in use in many RPM-based distros.
Removing choice does not also magically remove those who would /like/
that choice, in fact doing so is a far greater "hindrance" to /them/.
It's also completely antithetical to the ideals of Free Software, and
indeed the principles of Freedom itself. Unification of /any/ kind is
fairly typical of right-wing extremist doctrine, that discourages any
independence from the arbitrary choices made by the dictators who use
that power to control society. You're advocating totalitarianism.
> As more people take up Linux, the Linux user will be on average
> increasingly disinterested in the technicalities, and the vast
> majority will be using only a few standardized popular distros.
But this rather arrogantly assumes that the majority all share the same
preferences and tastes. People are not clones, they are individuals. In
fact the very /existence/ of hundreds of distros proves that people are
not satisfied with others' arbitrary choices, because if they were then
those other distros simply wouldn't exist. This is /exactly/ the appeal
of Free Software. You presume to dictate that others may not think for
themselves.
Then there's the fact that innovation is driven by necessity; diversity
and the Freedom to pursue one's own interests and goals.
If you remove or diminish the necessity to learn, by mandating arbitrary
choices that ostensibly "simplify" the user experience, or consolidating
the bases (distros) on which those diverse paradigms need to be learned,
then you actually discourage innovation, or indeed any participation at
all. And Free Software without participation or development is doomed to
extinction, unless you are also advocating that it becomes proprietary,
in which case it's still doomed to extinction because it won't /be/ Free
Software any more.
I'm not suggesting that Free Software should be necessarily /difficult/,
this isn't about "difficulty" (despite the exaggerated claims by certain
individuals), it's about innovation and /choice/. To suggest that /any/
degree of learning is undesirable and should be discouraged is perverse.
Difficulty is purely subjective. Should our choices be limited, and the
future of Free Software be put in jeopardy, just because certain people
express a reluctance to learn, or more likely ... because certain people
opposed to choice /claim/ that other's should not /have/ to learn?
At what point do you draw a line in the sand and say a particular method
is simple /enough/? Should people be strapped to chairs and spoon-fed a
predefined diet of the "elite's" ideas ... never allowed to think or act
for themselves because that would make life "complicated"? Is simplicity
the ultimate goal in life? Are we all drones that progress from birth to
death with as few impediments in between as possible? If there is such a
thing as any "meaning" to life, surely it has more to do with challenges
than simplicity; with our own unique solutions to those challenges; and
with the subsequent progress of society derived from those solutions.
Standards are a good and necessary thing, but so is innovation, and in
the case of Free Software so is participation. These concepts are not in
contradiction to one another, they are /all/ necessary. Just because we
/have/ standards, that does /not/ mean technology should stand still and
never change. Those changes must originate /somewhere/, and in the world
of Free Software that "somewhere" is the users - the alternative is that
other paradigm which plagues the totally inflexible Windows system, that
is owned and controlled by a handful of people; motivated only by money;
and who make arbitrary choices for everyone else. /That/ is a far worse
kind of elitism than merely dissenting against dumbing-down the system.
> The worse the configuration problems are, the more will be the
> pressure against obscure and nonstandard distros.
You make such distros sound like a /disease/ rather than a necessary and
healthy part of the Free Software ecosystem. Who's to say that standards
developed on these "obscure and non-standard distros" won't produce some
essential innovation in the future? You would kill ideas before they are
even born. The people who use and develop for these distros, do so for a
reason. Who are you to tell them that their goals are worthless and they
should just join the ranks of the sheep?
> The obscure distros will be used only by those who don't need
> mainstream commercial apps.
What commercial apps?
Are you suggesting that "obscure distros" can't run commercial software,
or that the non-standard packaging and configuration methods employed by
commercial software are somehow more acceptable in mainstream distros?
You'd support the non-standard methods of commercial software but reject
the supposedly non-standard methods of "obscure" distros. That is rather
biased and hypocritical, isn't it?
> I just don't see configuring for a few different distros as that much
> of a problem.
I see, so you'd advocate allowing commercial and proprietary software to
determine the standards employed by Free Software. But surely the entire
raison d'être for Free Software is independence from commercial control;
the innovation and adoption of Open Standards; and the Freedom of having
legal and technical access to the source, facilitating the expression of
one's /own/ ideas, rather than pandering to some corporate agenda.
> Homer: I guess you see something dangerous in this model. I'd be
> obliged if you would try to explain clearly in detail how you might
> be left without the kind of Linux you want, in view of the
> possibility of forking the kernel or any FOSS app or utility.
But that's a total contradiction to what you've just advocated, because
you're arguing for unification, but now you're suggesting that I should
break that unified model by doing exactly what you've advocated against
... breaking away from mainstream offerings to produce another choice.
You can't have it both ways. Either you want unification or choice.
Which is it?
Am I, or am I not, "allowed" to produce my own distro; my own software;
and my own standards, that may ultimately be adopted by others? And if
so then doesn't that rather defeat your objective?
Or perhaps you are suggesting that having forked that software, I should
keep it to myself; never share it with others; and never allow any of my
ideas to "taint" the "purity" of your "One World; One Mind" totalitarian
Linux. God forbid that ideas should ever be shared and benefit others.
> I'm sure you have in mind some kind of corrupting process exemplified
> by say the Suse takeover of a couple years ago.
Microsoft is corrupt, and they utilise corruption as standard "business"
procedure, so giving them any opening at all to corrupt Free Software is
generally a bad idea. Free Software is certainly a threat to their style
of "business", so they'd like nothing better than to destroy it by /any/
means possible, by corruption or otherwise, The little protection racket
which they coerced Novell and others to join, was just one attempt to do
exactly that, ironically enough by attempting to do exactly what you are
advocating now. I'm sure Microsoft would love nothing more than there to
be a single unified "Linux Inc." that they could attack using their vast
reserves of money, subsequently destroying that "threat". Unfortunately
for them, and fortunately for us, there is no such single entity, so the
best they can do is play some kind of whack-a-mole game that attempts to
suppress Free Software. This is a game they can't possibly win. However,
by unifying Free Software, you'd give Microsoft exactly the opening they
need to win that game.
Regardless of who or what might instigate that unification, it is a very
stupid and insidious idea, and IMHO the results would be a disaster for
Free Software. However, other than Microsoft's thuggish sabre rattling,
and the whining of the anti-choice fanatics, I'm not that concerned. IMO
this "unification" will never happen, because the software is Free, and
therefore there is nothing anyone can do to prevent diversity within the
Free Software ecosystem. It might be that change happens organically, in
the sense that some distro like Ubuntu essentially becomes "Windows II",
with an "all-important" 90% desktop share, thanks to it being tainted by
all that proprietary software, that recently converted Ubuntu noobs seem
to love so much. But that would be no different to the present situation
with Microsoft, and as I've stated before, I don't exactly feel like I'm
living in a "technological desert" because of that fact. I have choices,
so I don't have to use either Windows or Ubuntu, if I don't want to. You
would remove those choices.
That's not to say Microsoft aren't a threat, they certainly are, but the
threat they pose is like bandits robbing a wagon: It sometimes deprives
us of that wagon's contents, and stigmatises its reputation, but it does
not actually stop the wagon rolling. Free Software goes on regardless. I
am sickened by Microsoft's thuggish behaviour, and I'm ever hopeful that
their racketeering operation will eventually be crushed, either by their
own competition or by the law, but I'm not exactly cowering in fear that
they'll "destroy Linux".
A far bigger threat comes from those who seem determined to pervert Free
Software into something more like Windows, and thus destroy the essence
of that software completely. The "pragmatism" that tolerates proprietary
"blobs" in Free Software is one manifestation of this problem; adopting
Microsoft's Poisonware into Free Software is another; and unifying Linux
into a dumbed-down and inflexible system that discourages innovation and
participation is yet another.
I trust this response is clear; detailed and simple enough even for you,
although I apologise for having presented it so emotively, as I know you
have some contempt for emotions.
I'm flattered that you'd seek my approval for your ideas, but I'm afraid
I'll have to disappoint you on this occasion.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| By bucking Microsoft for open source, says Gunderloy, "I'm no
| longer contributing to the eventual death of programming."
| ~ http://www.linux.com/feature/142083
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
03:07:25 up 1 day, 20 min, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.05, 0.02
|
|
