Amos Shapira wrote:
Debian (and other distro's) convenience is that it packages many utilities and add-ons in an easy uniform interface to download/install/config.
This should be possible to do also on Windows (there is nothing special about the Linux kernel), only it haven't been done yet. People can probably come up with many reasons (one I can think of is the proprietary and non-free-as-in-speech nature of the licenses of most Windows utilities).
There are tucows.com/download.com etc., only there is no central body
(that I'm aware of) to help Windows users track changes convenietly,
I consider *integration* as the main benefit - not the cerntralized site.
Generally, Windows users are just not aware of the possibility to have all your software installable in a consistant and clean way from a single source (and have them all updated with a single command or GUI button). The major benefit of working with a mainstream distro, is that the package maintainers actively work on making all software integrate in a consistant way (and with the big distros, almost every useful new opensource software will be immediately packaged) e.g.:
* After you install an app, it will be immediately added to your menus in an appropriate sub-menu (in windows all apps are added into a huge single "Applications" menu, make themselved the default handler for stuff etc.).
* You can't install conflicting software - either conflicts would be automaticly resolved or you'll be asked to choose - and that's even before the download starts. If a package depends on other software, they will be automaticly downloaded and installed too.
* No more software overriding each other's settings, grabbing each others file extensions etc. Packages register the software with the distro's central mechanisms for handling alternatives.
security patches etc - they have to keep track of each installed utility
separatly. (Maybe it's an idea for a startup? :)
You can't do that (unless you drop what I consider to be the main benefit). And there's a good reason for that - namely Copyright law vs Open Source.
With propriatary software - no single entity can maintain a single repository with integrated packages covering all (well, 99% at least) of the software you'll ever need. They are just *not legally allowed* to do so.
If your'e Micorosft, you might create a central distribution source carrying Windows, Office, several games and tools, but what about Photoshop? Doom3? Acrobat Reader? WinZip? You can't legally distribute those without special contract with the authors (well, you can always buy some companies, and put others out of business ;-) ).
Of course, you could add some Free Software in your distribution too - but you can't add GPL-licensed stuff (and GPL is the most common OSS license). If you do add GPL stuff, you'll have to make all the other stuff open source too - so the commercial parts are out - you can't supply Office & Windows.
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