Hi, Nice discussion. But you are underestimating Fedora IMHO. I can't see why you drop it so hard. Those three monsters are interested in business, and there is still RHEL. On desktop? Sure, they don't spend dollars for Linux on desktop. The only option is still Fedora. And I was at a Novell miniconference, and they were saying twice a minute that they support RHEL either, and would continue to do that.
BTW, Fedora is the answer for personal use. Many GNOME developers, kernel developers, and other distinguished people work for Red Hat. Actually it's not amazing that Debian people have enought time to package every shit on earth, as they have nothing more to do, just packaging. But Red Hat developers are those that are advancing the borders of FOSS on desktop. $0.02 behdad On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Eli Marmor wrote: > Hi, > > I want to raise an issue for discussion; It is not related specifically > to Hebrew, nor to Israel, nor to me, but I haven't seen any similar > discussion on the net, so I raise it here: > > Until recently, there was not a real competition in the field of Linux > distributions; RedHat was the default, and all the rest (hundreds (!) > of them, according to LWN) served specific niches. > > This has been the status for at least 5-6 years. > > (Mandrake was popular too, but earned its popularity thanks for starting > as "RH++", till it was popular enough to start its own way) > > However, recently, in a very short time (2-3 months), a series of > dramatic events happened, that might changed everything we have ever > known about this field: > > 1. RH stopped shipping packages (though Fedora is partially an option). > 2. Novell acquired SuSE. > 3. IBM left its 100% neutral status, and now is backing SuSE directly, > developing shared projects with it, and even helped Novell to > acquire SuSE (see #2 above) by investing $50M in Novell shares. > 4. Sun released its own Linux distribution, JDS (p.k.a "MadHatter"), > and guess what - it is based on SuSE too. > > So with no RH package anymore, Mandrake based on charity, Debian serves > mostly freaks and embedded needs, and all of the 3 big names (IBM/SUN/ > Novell) backing SuSE - is SuSE the "new RH"? Is it going to be the new > "default Linux" instead of RH? > > The shared power of IBM/Sun/Novell should not be underestimated; It's a > dramatic development that all of the three biggest names (in size of > company) stand behind one distribution. In the past it has never > happened; the most that such companies agreed to say, was that they > preferred GNOME over KDE or vice-versa. Now, all of them stand behind > the same distribution, which has not been the leader one, ever. > > Moreover, the center of power of SuSE has been in Europe in general, > and Germany in particular, but all of these 3 companies are based in > the US. > > Is it the start of a new era in the Linux business? > > Please don't try to guess my own opinion from this message (I still > don't have), or flame me for raising the question; I'm just a wondering > man, who has difficulties in trying to guess the future of Linux and > choose his next distribution according to it. > > ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
