Distro comparison

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 04:22:18PM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
> > Can I ask what exactly you dislike about Red Hat? The most common
> > complaint I hear is dependency issues, but up2date and apt4rpm have all
> > but eliminated that concern.
> 
> - The mangling of KDE and Gnome to the point that the two companies are now 
> on fighting terms.  

Which two companies are you referring to?  

As for "mangling" Gnome and KDE, about all they did was change the
default themes and some settings.  So?  Change 'em back.  Have they
actually changed anything which prevents either desktop system from
working as it does with KDE or Gnome defaults?  (This is not just a
rhetorical question.)

Realistically, the KDE and Gnome people have no legitimate gripe here.
KDE and Gnome are both GPL software packages, and Red Hat has the
right to do whatever they want to it, guaranteed to them by the
projects' own licenses, so long as they release the source code to
their changes.  If a project doesn't want that, they should change
their license.

> I can no longer upgrade KDE on my Red Hat 7.3 box from either Red
> Hat or KDE, though there are third parties

This happens all the time, unfortunately, due to dependency issues.
But the point there is that 7.3 is vastly out of date.  You should not
expect to be able to run new software on such old systems, at least
not without basically gutting the thing and installing everything
fresh from source.  But then, it's no longer what you started with at
all...  But unless I'm missing something, I don't think this is a
distribution-specific problem.  It happens to all old distros.

> - Their refusal to put programs on their distro that MPAA/RIAA might
> maybe kinda sorta say is a bad thing one day

Can you name one?  (This is also not just a rhetorical question...  If
there's a legitimate issue here, I may rethink my own ideas about
distros.)

The mp3 player issue has nothing to do with the MPAA or RIAA.  It has
everything to do with the fact that the MP3 coding/decoding algorithm is
patented, and distributing it or using it requires a (paid) licence.
Red Hat does not want to pay, and does not want to put its customers
at legal risk.  This may be inconvenient, but frankly it's the right
decision.  For now, the patent holders have said they won't pursue
those who use mp3-related technology in free players, but there's
nothing to stop them from changing their mind tomorrow...

If you're willing to ignore the legal issues, fixing that
functionality is trivial.  There are RPMs which will take care of the
problem in a few seconds, if you have a fast internet connection.  But
be aware that you, as the user, are technically violating the law if
you use them without (paying for) a licence.  The consequence in this
case is extremely unlikely to be anything but nil, but you should
still be aware of the issue.

If you have a gripe here, it should be with software patents and their
holders, not with Red Hat.

> - The compiler version screwups in recent releases

While there was a legitimate issue with one compiler release, so long
as you did not try to compile software on a machine with a different
compiler, and run it on a machine with that compiler, you have no
problem.  That is, if you stuck to red hat's rpms, or compiled your
software on the same release of red hat, you have no problem.  To do
otherwise is folly anyway...

The issue in moving to GCC 3 is not distro-specific.  There were
fundamental changes which made the binary formats incompatible.  This
happened to every distro that upgraded to GCC 3, and will happen again
any time such a major upgrade occurs.

If you're referring to some other problem, I'm not aware of it.

> - The new Fedora Project model scares me.  I don't know what it will do to 
> the quality and consistency of the releases.

Out of everything you've listed, this seems to be the only legitimate
gripe.  But I'll point out that you're still running 7.3, and RH9 is
available, and will be supported for some time yet.  In that time, you
should have plenty of time to determine the usability of future
releases of Fedora.  There's no point in complaining about the quality
of software that doesn't even exist yet...

> - The demotion of the personal user from their lifeblood to a vast fleet of 
> testers for their *real* release, as a side effect of the above

Red Hat is a company in business to make money.  They MUST make
decisions on that basis, or there will cease to be a Red Hat.  You may
not agree with their changes, but I'd rather have Red Hat around than
not.  They've done much for the community, and I've no reason to
think that won't continue.

You seem to be suggesting that this is a shift in philosophies which
you find personally offensive, where in reality it is nothing but a
business decision, made to help ensure their continued existence.
You have mentioned being leary of switching to Mandrake because of its
shaky financial stability and unsure furture.  Red Hat is only trying to 
prevent being in the same situation.  This decision has nothing to do
with you or its users.  It has everything to do with staying alive.

> - No more boxed sets

So?  Download the ISOs.

> - Their graphical tools to maintain your box are largely undocumented

Well, this might be an issue, but as a long-time professional
sysadmin, my opinion (prejudice) is that you shouldn't rely on them
anyway.  If you want that, run Windows.

Ultimately, I guess if you're not happy with the software, you should
switch.  But ultimately, I think you will eventually have similar
gripes about those responsible for any software to which you make a
change.  It seems virtually unavoidable, and from a practical
perspective, personally I don't really see much to complain about.

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
-=-=-=-=-
This message is posted from an invalid address.
Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail.
Sorry for the inconvenience.  Thank the spammers.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.blu.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20031021/3504a026/attachment.sig>