Turbolinux CEO Sees A One-Distribution Future 124
Scooter[AMMO] was one of the first with this report: "According to Turbolinux CEO Paul Thomas, the future will see Linux boiled down to one generic distribution. Catch the scoop here. How can this claim be made? How can a system like Debian throw away all its guidelines to create a generic distribution? I won't give up apt, and I sure don't see RH accepting it. Why should Peter let the uber-stable power user-oriented Slackware head towards the bug infested hail-the-script-kiddies Red Hat? Standards are great, but aren't the ideals of different distributions what give Linux its flavour?"
Score 0, troll? (Score:1)
What the heck is trollish about the previous comment? Ah yeah, I know: You moderators like/use RedHat and whenever you see someone saying it isn't the best, they deserve to be moderated down.
Just like the FAQ sez: If the comment is against your personal standards, moderate it down, right?
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:1)
True other distros have security problems, but looking at any of the security sites redhat takes the cake for the linux distros.
Redhat has a lot of responsiblity, they ARE linux to the common folk. I don't know how many times I have heard Joe Public tell me he is running Linux 6.0/6.2/etc..., and those are the people that get hacked, the masses.
Being a flag carrier for linux is great, but redhat needs to take on the responsiblity of releasing a secure, bugless product or at least strive to get there.
Mean Ol'Slackware? (Score:1)
Looking through here I noticed mention of Slackware forcing a couple of projects to change their name... I can not speak for SlackNet or whatever, but I do know the true story about SlackWAR.
SlackWAR is (was) my project, it is just a package to help lock-down a fresh Slack install -- Think Bastille for Slackware. Anyway, yes I changed the name of it, after Patrick contacted me any asked me to -- nicely, no threats or lawyers or even registered mail! Just a few emails between us.
I understand his concern and have no problem with changing the name! And Pat only mentioned it the one time... End of Story!
Anyway, the project is still alive at sourceforge as BattleWare now, with Patrick's support... just thought this needed to be said.
Not really a coward, just don't have an account!
anti-redhat (Score:1)
Gimme a break! (Score:1)
Oh please, isn't this taking recent (over-exaggerated at that) news articles just a bit too far? Try and look at things in some perspective here.
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:1)
Then I tried debian. Now I have the best of both worlds. Following "unstable" keeps me bleeding edge, and works better than redhat's "stable" releases. And it has more of that low-level slackware flavor. Pretty much the only flaw is the sysV style init script directories.
Who is this guy? (Score:1)
Re:Thomas: "This Has To Grow Up." (Score:1)
which btw, is Slackware Inc, property of Walnut Creek Inc, which is owned by BSD Inc, which is financed by Yahoo! and mergered with Telenet Systems Solutions, all of which forms a 30 Million Dollar conglomorate
recently forced two seperate open source development projects to change their name, because the projects names were too close to Slackware, a registered trademark and posed a threat to profits!
Sounds like big, profit driven business to me?
The alternative OS movement is degenerating (Score:1)
Now it is "I am a BSD/Debian user and I am more 133t than lame RedHat 7 users" (as per this news item)
Basically its a bunch of adolescents who opt out from the mainstream OS in order to help them feel better about themselves. Now that RedHat has become mainstream, these individuals must distance themselves. Maybe one day a generic linux distribution will materialize, but when that day comes the Slashdot crowd will have moved on the latest alternative.
Guess it's time to move to Debian (Score:1)
Hello, Debian [debian.org].
standardized? (Score:1)
Re:It's not giving anything up (Score:1)
I said, "the rc?.d and init.d in
Maybe the convergence on directories and config files is coming, who knows!? It would be fine with me.
Re:Hackers aren't mainstream users (Score:1)
Any particular company will probably use all the same distribution, just to have a single vendor relationship, but there's no reason that multiple compatible distributions can't co-exist with different patrons.
Hostility and FUD in the Community (Score:1)
I'm sure this perception only comes from a certain loud minority, but I'm getting so sick of seeing this crap go on in what used to be such a friendly, supportive community.
I also find it ironic and telling that it was the "bugs" in a particular version of Slackware that caused me to try out alternatives like RedHat. Slackware worked great for me for a while, then it let me down and I tried something else, which has worked great for me since. I don't see any need to bash Slackware, I'm sure all the problems were eventually fixed.
I'd prefer it if stupid attitudes like these weren't published on the home pages of major community sites, leading to people who don't know better taking it completely the wrong way (and probably out of context, too.)
Re:Read the article (Score:1)
Hmm. This is kind of what I was suggesting in this Kuro5hin rant [kuro5hin.org]. Basically, I suggested that distributions adopt a common filesystem layout and packaging specification. Glad to see that things are moving towards this end.
And... if you want to know why I'm glad, perhaps you should read the rant. I'm not going to repeat myself :)
Don't think so (Score:1)
Re:Who is this guy? (Score:1)
Of course, I still disagree with what he said, and I didn't particularly like the distribution back then either
Re:I would propose three distros (Score:1)
I was one of two people who did all the majority of the work on TL 4 and 6. TWO people.
TL has some cool features, but it isn't very good.
TurboLinux in Perspective (from the inside) (Score:1)
I have been told, but don't know it, that the Japanese TurboLinux developer team made the original RedHat CD Distro. I don't know how much of that is fact, or what, but that's what I was told.
Anyway, TurboLinux happened after RedHat and Pacific HiTech had a falling out of some kind. I don't know any details.
I went to work for TurboLinux about a year and a half ago. I spent a year working for them as a Build Engineer. Basically, me and this other guy did everything for the US distribution. We built the packages, compiled the kernels, and fixed the annoying installer and annoying turbo tools.
We were entirely independent from the Japanese team. Our distros were never in sync, a fact that drove our management nuts.
You see, all of our staff in the US were people with experience in non-OpenSource/GPL software. The developers that were OpenSource advocates had to constantly remind these people what OpenSource meant.
What Paul Thomas said in the CNet article is something that was constantly repeated by the upper management. I usually heard it from Rok Sosic, though. Paul Thomas has no experience with Open Source or Linux. His last job involved fixing a sinking ship. TL wasn't a sinking ship, but it's corperate culture (in the US) was not healthy. The biggest problem was lack of direction.
Anyway, the theory of Converging Linux Distros goes like this:
Weirdly enough, TurboLinux existed because there was a market in Japan and China for localized versions. I honestly think that even if GLIBC 3.0 came out tomorrow with perfect I18N and all the software in 90% of the Linux Distros became translated overnight, that still there'd be a need for a different distro for each country. Culture and national pride almost demands it.
Anyway, distro compatability was TurboLinux's biggest problem. The JP version of TurboLinux wasn't compatable with the US version of TurboLinux. Imagine how companies like IBM and Oracle hated that. They had to do a TL(jp) and TL(en) version of their products for Linux.
Here's why: In Japan, if you say a product will be gold on the 1st of the month, then it will be gold on the first of the month. In the US, we stretch deadlines like crazy. We cannot ship a product that is missing a certain feature.
In Japan, they need certain versions of some packages (for localizing purposes). Usually older ones. In the US we have to have the latest versions. (We jumped from TL4 to TL6 because we would, literally get calls saying that RedHat was version 5, and we were 4, so RedHat must be newer!)
In Japan, they had to have a modified glibc. In the US, we used the latest version.
Anyway, it was basically the case that TurboLinux didn't (and probably still doesn't) understand what OpenSource is and how to make it pay. Management there, like Rok Sosic and Lonn Johnson (marketing/sales VP) would come up to developers and say how Open Source just doesn't work and/or make sense and how you can't make money off of it.
My answer was usually, "you mean you haven't figured out how to make money from it, yet". In my mind, TurboLinux was still looking for a peice of property that they could control and make money with, like a traditional manufacturing plant.
The world doesn't work that way anymore. Ask Microsoft. Even as MS tries to hang on to the control methods of distribution, they are working hard on service. The evolution of .NET is a good example. You know they want to control it, but at the same time, you can see them figuring out it won't be 100% controlled.
Music and MP3s is another example. The world just doesn't work that way anymore.
Anyway, just to finish this up. TurboLinux laid-off about 50% of the US staff, in what I was told, to set a firm direction for the company. I was included in that layoff, the only build engineer at the time.
TL7 was supposed to be on shelves by now, but it isn't. To be honest, I hope they did the right thing and just had the JP team do TL7(en). In this way, you would have a TL(jp) and TL(en) that would finally be compatible with each other. If they are having TL7 being done in the US, by a seperate team, it will be (in my opinion) a costly mistake.
As a postscript, I'd like to add that the Japanese Developers were really cool guys. But either I don't understand business rules in Japan at all (a strong possibility) or the JP management was a bunch of doofuses. Or a combination.
We also had some Chinese developers who'd take a combination of the JP and US versions to make their distro. The Chinese developers were also really cool folks, who deserve credit for their work, too.
Ciao!
autoconf-like distributions? common dist format? (Score:1)
i guess a possible solution would beself-installing packages that can figure out where to put things on their own (sort of like autoconf'ed sources).. or a common package format that all distributions can handle cleanly, together with a reasonably configurable installer for those who do bother.
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:1)
Right on. There really isn't much differentiating between all the various distros at this point. They all have basically the same kernel, X server, gnu utilities, et cetera. The only real differences are in what the window manager is, be it one of the older things (unlikely at this point) such as AfterStep or Lesstif, or Gnome or KDE, file layout, value added utilities, and program management. Plus whatever apps happen to come bundled with each given distro.
So... if people can settle down on one side of the fence, so far as
Patrick, I think! (Score:1)
You're right! Slackware is king!
But it's Patrick Volkerding. Not Peter.
:)
Little biased are we? (Score:1)
How can a system like Debian throw away all its guidelines to create a generic distribution? I won't give up apt, and I sure don't see RH accepting it. Why should Peter let the uber-stable power user-oriented Slackware head towards the bug infested hail-the-script-kiddies Red Hat?
Besides, I thought Debian was the "uber-stable power user-oriented" one and Slackware was the script kiddie one.
Re:Thomas: "This Has To Grow Up." (Score:1)
Re:The alternative OS movement is degenerating (Score:1)
Re:I know, I know, "we've heard this all before." (Score:1)
This is basically just the same problem one had with the old fragmentation of Unix. That is, market share fighting make the distribution players "differentiate" their offerings.
Now, from a commercial point of view a single Linux distribution makes sense. Make the program run on a single target platform and you're covered.
If you want to make a program work on more than one distribution, you need to at least cover these differences:
- compiler versions
- libc versions
- init script layout
- config file layout
- package management system
- other library versions
My hope is that LSB can get a proper standard out for this, so that ISVs can say "this program should run on any LSB 1.1 compliant distribution". If that doesn't happen, we'll just see more of the current trend - commercial applications will come with a sticker that says "runs on $CURRENTLY_MOST_POPULAR_DISTRIBUTION".
More disrto wars (Score:1)
"uber-stable Slackware"
"script-kiddie Red Hat"
What a load of crap. So far I haven't seem any Linux distro (well, except for Linux One) that wasn't worth something.
The idea that there will eventually be one Linux distro is one that business/marketing/money people see. If you only know one way to think then of course you will come to the conclusion that that is the way everything works. If we, the open source community, can stop fighting over nonsense like distro wars or BSD vs Linux and other total wasts of energy things would be a LOT better.
---
Re:oh c'mon, you're trolling, man! (Score:1)
As for me, I like Red Hat, though I am not running it at present. (Though I am running Mandrake, which for all it's improvements / differences) is of course still a RH derivative
That's all I meant to say. That there's no giant conspiracy or anything
timothy
A common all inclusive Distribution ? (Score:1)
Such a distribution could have a custom installation option that would not only let you choose the packages to install but also configure the kernel ( SMP, Bigmem, JournalingFS etc.. ), set up and configure server deamons, set up networks or even clusters, do a copycat install over dozens of machines etc.. Now having such a mega-distribution with the concerted efforts of all the major Distro and Platform vendors.
But would having such a super-distro taking up a few 4.7G DVDs be economically feasible than having seperate ( Standard/Professional/Enterprise etc,. ) distros from each taget buyer type remains open to discussion.
Re:OSSBS - Operating System Standard Base Structur (Score:1)
There is no drive lettering in UNIX... links
can transend multiple partitions once they
are mounted. no?
-Matthew
Technetos, Inc.
Re:I would propose three distros (Score:1)
Slackware is/can be the "basic distro" that you speak of. Although Slackware does include X and KDE, etc - these are optional packages. What slackware doesn't include is all kinds of package maintence and system administration stuff. If you installed the appropriate packages, all you would have would be a kernel, some base libs, bash, and the basic commands.
interesting... (Score:1)
<p>
Last time I tried to install <i>any</i> version of Windows on PPC, or SPARC, or or anything other than Intel (and formerly Alpha for NT) it wouldn't run. i386 seems to be the only supported architecture, and until not that long ago, only Intel made 'em.
How long has BSD been around?
That's Not Fair! (Score:1)
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:1)
I agree. I think this Red Hat bashing is quite childish.
Re:I know, I know, "we've heard this all before." (Score:1)
This whole topic is a flambait, but more importantly it shows which distro is the "script kiddie distro" -- no doubt, judging from the script kiddie attitude in the posts, Slackware it is.
Look, I started out using Slackware in my early year, and I have never even touched redhat. But what distro you use have very little to do with anything. I have a friend who wrote a few dozen drivers, was on the cover of linux journal 3 years ago for his smart card drivers for linux, and he now uses Mandrake. Now which one of you Slackware script kiddies have the guts to come out and dismiss him because of his choice of distribution? You probably can't because he ran Slackware from the early years and he simply got tired of hand-compiling and installing everything himself.
The CEO of TurboLinux started a flambait. Big deal. Slashdot need not propagate it, especially not with another script kiddie's flambait.
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:1)
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:1)
By that logic, UNIX is twice as fragmented as BSD, so we should abandon the entire idea of UNIX.
Re:A Slowdown in Innovation (Score:1)
The benevolent dictatorship / meritocracy of most Linux mailing lists, combined with the massive amount of open source projects management tools for cuncurrent effort, bug tracking, web site management, etc would astound these people. CVS, Bugzilla, SoreForge, etc. are highly organized.
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:1)
DB
I sure hope he was misquoted (Score:1)
So, insofaras one uses the definition "a descendant of RedHat" as the definition for a Linux distribution, yes, it's reasonable to suppose they'll coalesce back into one. It's pretty unlikely that Debian and RedHat will merge, since they're based on different concepts. Ditto for Slackware.
So this story is most likely an attempt to drum up awareness of Turbolinux, which appears to be a RedHat plus some proprietary stuff.
--
fish don't have their bowls region locked
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:1)
As for BSD, it is my impression that in any given flavor of BSD (BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) there is still only one official distribution. I would not define FreeBSD and OpenBSD as different distributions of the same OS, as I would with Slackware and Red Hat -- the code is quite different in different versions of BSD, and there is no central authority defining kernel version X as the standard as there is in Linux.
Now MacOS. MacOS X server is a completely different OS from OS X. Just because they are made by the same company does not make them the same OS, as is also the case with Windows ME/2000.
Actually, when you think about, the very concept of distributions is unique to the Linux world. Whether this is a good thing or bad we have yet to see. I certainly think that with such a novel concept of the same OS being distibuted by different companies rather than the same company distributing different OSes it is impossible to predict accurately what the future holds for the different Linux vendors.
Convergence inevitable (Score:1)
Some convergence is inevitable due to the very nature of open source development. As good ideas emerge in various distributions, competing distributions can pick up not only those ideas but also the code base to quickly implement identical or similar features. The Mandrake and Redhat distro's are a good example. Mandrake started out as incremental upgrades to Redhat and has since led the way (and I'd suspect done some of the coding) for Redhat's continued developement.
I don't believe it will ever boil down to a single "uber distro" but similarities are inevitable. Unless the various Linux distributions agree on a standard API (or a number of compatible API's), developers will continue to be forced to either develop multiple versions of their software for the ideosyncracies of various distributions or leave the users on their own to make the software work. This directly relates to Linux's ability to become a "mainstream" operating system. While power users and developers may be willing to take on this burden, you can bet that the "Average Joe or Josephine" neither can or will. I know some Linux folks may not intend for the AOL crowd to use their software but it is a viable market with lots of users. Karma be damned, that's my
Linux needs this and more (Score:1)
Standard Versions -vs- Fast Food (Score:1)
Seriously, in the US anyway this cannot happen. I suspect it can't happen anywhere else either. There may be some standardization of some things common to all distros but in reality Linux is the kernel. As far as I know every Linux distro uses the linux kernel.
As Americans like fast food they also demand choices. I think most people regardless of national origin like and appriciate choices. So I should probably consolidate my opinion to say all people like to decide for themselves on what they eat or what distro tey want to use.
If this is untrue how does this CEO justify his companies very existence? I'll go out on a limb and say that Pacific High Tech wanted a Linux distro that met the needs of it's target customers. Which if I am correct, are customers from the Pacific Rim who speak Japanese. I believe thats where they got thier start ( someone interject if I am wrong ).
Ahhh.....so because there was a lack of Japanese oriented Linux distros the people in that market now had a CHOICE of a distro that suited their language needs.
So I conclude that there can never be a single standard generic Linux distro. Too many people have grown to love choice. And choice gives people the freedom to decide for themselves whats right.
Personal or corporate choice will always be prefered. Remember the most accurate example of how NOT having a choice is destructive. Microsoft!
Because this "MS's way or the hiway" attitude helped bring about this Linux revolution. It's also how MS have found themselvbes in a jam with the DOJ. It's also what ensures there will always be a multitude of distro choices.
Re:They've got blinders on! (Score:1)
But what they'll do is placing software in the same directory's, using the same software (just like every distro uses the same kernel),...
Of course people won't start migrating it all into one distribution, but the general layout will be more easy to see.
In this way you don't change distribution just for the location of httpd.conf or whatever program... You'll change distribution for it being up-to-date, for the extra software you get with it, for the ease of installation, for
Generally I think it's a good idea to have competition between distributions, but let them not have it in supported drivers, different names,
Opinions expressed... (Score:1)
No they suck (Score:1)
If you consider constantly fighting to maintain a machine 'flavor' then yeah. Debian is bloated, Redhat messy, and slackware et al FUBAR.
It's time for a consolidated minimalist core for a standard base, and a unified packaging system.
All Encompasing (Score:1)
Timely (Score:1)
Re:What's really great here is that... (Score:1)
highly unlikely (Score:1)
Single distribution (Score:1)
And how will that be enforced. Will they have distribution police that would remove from the Net other's people distributions. Sure, theoretically they may put out something which is so cool it over takes RedHat, Debian, Slackware, Mandrake to mention a few (although I dont see a possibility of that), but nothing is perfect. People will package their own. Linux is not an OS, Linux is a kernel; the OS is Slackware, Debian etc.. where they package the GNU utilities with it. So there is always one Linux, although if you wish to modify the kernel and distribute it there's nothing wrong with that. Also diversity of distributions is a great thing: all users have preferences of their own, and if a certain company caters to their users rather then "the market", we get much better quality software. After all, is there Debian Windows or RedHat Solaris?
What are they going to call it? (Score:1)
Interfaced,
Centrally
Revisioned
Operating
System
and
Optional
Featured
Toolkits
Or maybe in short... MICRO$OFT Linux...
Neat.
Re:They've got blinders on! (Score:1)
-MunKy_v2 [dialug.org]
I use all of them (Score:1)
I just wish commercial vendors can make GENERIC versions for dists other than Redhat. (ColdFusion Server is a prime example. Ever try installing that baby of Slack??)
Irony (Score:1)
Maybe it would be a good thing? (Score:1)
Also, this Standard Linux could be the agreed standard for comparisons with other operating systems for benchmarking, rather than letting biased people take on the weakest of the current lot. This would allow Linux as a brand to compete, instead of Linux being fragmented into RedHat, SuSe, Debian, etc - these would still exist, but the core of each would be the same or similar.
Duh! (Score:1)
It's NOT like anybody's saying there is "one" distro that anyone and everyone follows, and that NOBODY ELSE can modify...
Take a look at Red Hat and Mandrake. I consider them to be more one and the same than different.
How is the future pictured any different?
-Ben
PS: Low blow, slashdot! Just because I use RH as a baseline for development doesn't mean I don't know how to secure a box... script kiddies indeed!
redhat bashing; I use to do it too. (Score:2)
I used to bash Redhat a lot; I think their distro is very buggy for UNIX software.
Way I see it, Redhat has done a LOT for the acceptance of Linux in the professional world; and for that they will always have my thanks. If it was not for Redhat, I would be running Solaris on a lot of the boxes I manage. Instead I run Debian, because in my opinion it is more stable/secure and easier to maintain [ Redhat NEEDS apt! ].
So thanks to Redhat pushing Linux, I am free to use Debian instead of Solaris.
Also, I don't think I would be listening to http://www.betalounge.com on RealPlayer running on Linux if it wasn't for the what I will call "the Redhat push" for linux acceptance in the real world.
Re:It's just natural (Score:2)
It's called Open Source licensing.
Let's see...RPM is GPLed, as are most of the other tools used by Red Hat (or they are under another Open Source license). Also, there are other RPM based distros (Mandrake, Caldera, TurboLinux), and there are tools that allow you to convert rpms to debs and/or tgz. As for file structure/placement...well there's always symlinks (although I wish there were a decent tool that would keep track of symlinks).
Frankly (Score:2)
When a statement like this comes from a CEO of a second or third-tier company, it probably means that they're about to merge with one of the big boys...it looks like a save-face move to me. TurboLinux is not one of the distinctive distros - they don't have the name recognition of Red Hat, or the reputation of Slackware and Debian.
Turbo has done well in the Asian market (is that the correct term? I don't want to be non-PC...) but there numbers in the U.S.A. and Europe aren't worth diddly. I'd say that they're about to pull a SCO and their distro is going to be absorbed by another company.
On the topic of an Uber-distro - never happen. It's possible that the field will narrow to two or three commercial market-leaders, but Debian has a fairly solid user base that isn't going anywhere. Slackware has a fairly committed following as well. As long as there is Linux, I imagine you'll see three to five major commercial distros and the smattering of free or minor commercial variants you find now. (For instance, the KRUD distro that is based on Red Hat, but with bug fixes and such isn't going anywhere.)
Re:He might raise a valid point (Score:2)
Errrr, I'm sure Debian would be happy if you sent them money, but the Debian Project doesn't make money off it. (although I'm sure some individual developers do via consulting and similar things, which more-or-less covers the "money from support" angle you're thinking of)
(reading Debian-related articles on
Daniel
Re: (Score:2)
Diversity is the spice of life... (Score:2)
More precisely, a set of tools.
But there is no single tool or set of tools that will do all the jobs that need doing unless the set in question includes every tool ever made. Such a tool set would be unwieldy.
My point? A single distribution can't possibly satisfy the needs of everyone without being so large and unwieldy as to be useless to everyone. Ergo, there will always be multiple distributions, and this is a good thing.
I think it's likely that not only does the CEO of Turbolinux believe that there will eventually be only one distribution of linux, but also that said distribution will be Turbolinux. What a surprise, huh?
--
Moderators (Score:2)
Some shake out would be good (Score:2)
Choice is good, to much choice can be overwhelming. One thing that is begining to bother me about Linux is the sheer number of distributions, especially since I need to keep up with all of them (doing weekly security digests and all). There is even a local distribution made by some guys who used to (no kidding) do tractor related hardware (like farmer stuff), but decided to make the switch. Right now barely anyone is really adhering to the Linux Standards Base, versions of GCC are all over the place, file placement is a crapshoot; /usr/man? /usr/share/man? It definetely wouldn't hurt to lose a few of the smaller players. I don't see how Linux can shrink to
What will happen is the big players will get bigger, making money through support, branding, and so forth. The little guys will get gobbled up, or fall by the wayside. And hopefully more people will adher to the Linux STandards Base.
Note to slashdot crew: you complain when journo's bash Linux/distroi's needlessly (I took a lot of flack on that Debian article, remember?) and I find the redhat bashing way lame. In response to an earlier article (RedHat has 1000's of bugs) you not only got the Bugzilla URL totally wrong, but the number of bugs as well. I was able to find less then 300 in total (open, closed, verified, you name it), and of those I'd say less then half were real problems. Slashdot seems to be getting sloppier and sloppier.
This is not desirable (Score:2)
Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions, and may or may not comform to those of my employer.
It's not giving anything up (Score:2)
It seems to be more about the arguement that we have all been hearing about more and more over the last year to two years. Standards, as far as where config files, binaries, libraries, etc reside.
I have read many of the arguments for both side and I still don't fully comprehend why standards cannot be implemented.
If it comes down to "this one uses a foo style, and that one uses a bar style" well why can't those styles have a standard way of doing things. If everyone that used the foo style put thier scripts in the same place it would make all our lives easier when helping each other out with problems.
One distro to bind them all (Score:2)
This won't happen and not for the reasons stated.
Debian will give up AptGet if they think it's good for Debian..
RedHat will give up RPM if they deside it should happen..
Slackware will pkgtool if they think they should..
But they will not clone each other.
Each Distro must compeate by targetting a diffrent group with diffrent needs. It's all Linux but diffrent forms of Linux and each behave diffrently.
Debian has AptGet becouse it's segment needs it.
RedHats users want RPM...
Slackware users demand a Linux that folows the KISS princaple.
Each folowing a diffrent market...
Linux an Os devided to be stronger... oh so very strange
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:2)
If the Slashdot team uses a different distro, they should keep in mind that some people choose different ones for different reasons, and lay off a bit on the childish remarks.
Let's face it. (Score:2)
THe only reason that it would boil down to one generic distribution is becuase it was good, stable, and what everyone wanted. And if that is what everyone wants at some point in the future.. great.
Until that's the case.. why even muse about it?
I would propose three distros (Score:2)
- Merge Red Hat and Corel Linux, Mandrake: a home-user distro, easy to use, end-user support
- Merge Debian and Slackware: a high-end server solution, rock solid, not for the faint of heart. Would require corporate support such as what red Hat offers
- Merge Caldera, TurboLinux, SuSE: The power-user's choice
This would lessen the Linux Fragmentation Effect(tm) and would also help standardise interesting issues, such as config file locations.
Re:I would propose three distros (Score:2)
Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford get to make minivans.
Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin make sports cars.
Jaguar, Mercedes and BMW get to make luxury coupes and sedans.
All the French and Swedish car makers get together with the smaller Italian guys to make quirky cars that people buy to be different.
Each company can just make one model of car. Hell, why not just have them all be the same color? That'd streamline production headaches for sure!
Ugh. I sure wouldn't want to live in that world. The differences between Linux distros are much much smaller than their similarities. I'd be shocked if somebody who was good with (say) SuSE couldn't know everything they needed to about Slackware in a couple hours.
Yes, I know that OSes for better or worse are more complicated to operate and maintain than cars, but the only people who want fewer choices in the marketplace are the ones whose business models require that they be one of few choices in the market place. Hate to be crass, but fuck 'em. It's not their decision to make, is it?
Uhmmmm Peter? (Score:2)
-- iCEBaLM
Re:oh c'mon, you're trolling, man! (Score:2)
Wow, I didn't read him saying any of those things. All he said was the truth; that you slam Red Hat more and more and post remarks degrading it's users.
If anything, you guys are posting flame bait and this guy is not trolling.
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
oh c'mon, you're trolling, man! (Score:2)
Re: whether VA (who slashdot authors work for, albeit pretty darn indirectly -- we don't report to Fremont for anything) is a "rival for RedHat" or whether there is a "hidden agenda set by their masters?" Whaaaa?
OK, you're right. VA Linux (with whom I have close personal ties at least once every 2 hours) instructs me to disparage the variety of Linux they load on their own machines. VA owns Red Hat, I swear, but they've rubbed out anyone who's tried to make that public. Also, they tell me which floor of the book depository to wait on with the big rifle. Honest.
In short, a cheerful "pshaw!" to that particular criticism. I've used Red Hat (2nd distro I ever installed), and look forward to trying out future versions, too.
Cheers,
timothy
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:2)
Sitting here, surrounded by the humming noise of rackmounted Linux servers(RH 6.2), running; qmail, Apache, Squid, ipchains+NAT/Masq., BRU, Netsaint, Phorum, Samba, ssh, etc, this statement kind of hurt;
"...the bug infested hail-the-script-kiddies Red Hat?"
Especially since our site has survived a DDoS attack, a huge multiple gigabyte mailloop (well, technically it was a mail circle-jerk, caused by an ms-exchange autoresponder), without causing our RH based servers any problems (our bandwith was sucked dry of course).
I do like RH; both the company, and their distro.
I like rpm's, they make it easy to manage our 4 servers. Not that I have any problems with tarballs, but rpm's just makes things easier, while still having strict control over the systems.
I like the way RH is involved in the OSS community.
I like my bugzilla mails, and the fact that RH on the whole, is very responsive with bug-fixes.
I have no problem whatsoever, with other peoples choice of Linux distro. If someone wants to build their very own Linux distro from scratch, then I think that that is a cool thing to do; but it is not a viable option for _me_, though.
Re:OSSBS - Operating System Standard Base Structur (Score:2)
I didn't forget about the Kernel either.
But lets face it. The things that matter most in the differences between the linux distros also take up very little space. Today, its common that a linux install has a handful of kernels to choose from. Whats wrong with releasing a distro that has a kernel that functions from each distro, plus a unified kernel that is slowly evolving in the background? A Linux Distro can be designed to allow to easily switch in and out of different flavors, and to have symbolic links in enough places so that very little switching would have to be done in the end anyway. But enable the endusers to take the easy of decision making into their own hands, and same as developers. Stop leaving it in the ends of the Distros cause they aren't gonna unfragment on their own anytime soon.
We have Gigabyte hard drives today. All thats needed is a packaging system that is aware of the structure of each main distro and their differences. And for it to tell the difference between a base priority package, and all the same 3rd party crap that comes with EVERY DISTRO. Its not hard, its not rocket science. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AND JUST DO IT.
Hell, I'll help.. and I'll put money on it. Anyone think they can pull off what I'm talking about? Contact me and I'll get the project funded, seriously.
Sincerely,
-Matthew
Technetos, Inc.
Stupid idea. (Score:2)
Re:Thomas: "This Has To Grow Up." (Score:2)
I prefer Linux
Not likely (Score:2)
But then, isn;t that what these different distrobutions are all about? Someone who is new would install Corel or Redhat, and experts use others like Debian, Slackware, Mandrake, etc...
I also don't really see a point to creating only one distro, it gives people more choice. And it allows people to choose what they want. Instead of you telling them what they want.
My own observations... (Score:2)
Ironically, as a committee member on my local 1200 person LUG, and someone who spends a lot of time with Linux users, the main arguments are always between Debian and Red Hat users. Again, and this is only an observation, I have met less than 10 people who use Slackware, and most others treat it as a bit of a joke, due to its lack of a packaging system.
While being a Red Hat user, those who see some semblance between Debian and Slackware would more than likely offend many [of not most] Debian users. Debian users like their distro because of its neat packaging capability. To suggest a semblance with a non-packaged Linux distribution would offend them to death. Likewise, most Linux server installations would ignore Slackware due to the idfficulty of upgrades and software maintenance tools.
Re:He might raise a valid point (Score:2)
The latest quarter's results are at http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ti cker=rhat&script=410& amp; amp;layout= 9&item_id=116923 [corporate-ir.net]. From here we learn that RH made $9.25M on "subscriptions", $7.8M on services, and $1.44M on "web" in the last three months.
The treminology is a bit confusing, but I guess "subscriptions" is software related sales while "web" are sales of other items from the Red Hat Store?
The cost of revenue was $3.6M, $4.2M, and $58k, respectively, giving net profits of around $5.7M, $3.6M, and $1.5M.
So to answer your question: in profit terms software packages account for 53% compared with 33% for services.
In summary: The "basic argument" is wrong.
Re:It's just natural (Score:2)
Compatibility?
har,har,har.
There is VERY little of this in the 'revenue driven' model of Linux. And the companies have no *REASON* to encourage compatibility.
Compatibility means customers can freely move from one platform to another. It is in the interest of the Linux Distro companies to create reasons not to move to another vendor. One way is incompatiblity.
Thanks timothy (Score:2)
- Gnome is better than KDE. I haven't used KDE in a year, but you know, i figure it must be the same as it was a year ago.
- RPM is cooler than apt because I know how to use RPM and don't know how to use apt and rpm sounds cooler.
- BSD sucks because its not Linux and not because I've never used it. Not to mention the mascot has too many pointy edges and could be dangerous for small children.
- Windows minesweeper is better than Gnome-mines. It just is.
Re:It's just natural (Score:2)
If any one distro gains too much market share, what's to keep it from adding more 'features' and breaking the compatibility. When a distribution's revinue model is service oriented (as recent RedHat models are), then slight incompatibilities = higher revenue. Due to better service plans and more service calls.
I use Redhat and I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying that when it comes to business everything is driven by the 'al ighty ollar' (Simpson's reference for the Simpson's-impaired folk).
Re:What's really great here is that... (Score:2)
I know, I know, "we've heard this all before." (Score:2)
When it comes to packaged distributions, it's no longer so simple. I am utterly fed up with the cluelessness of the industry and a lot of users. This may not be an original insight, but maybe the plethora of distributions is one of the qualities of Linux!
Sure, we have to deal with some incompatabilities and quirks, but the whole reason many of us choose Linux is because Linux gives us choices, not lack thereof (M$).
I believe, and this is quite sad, that no matter how supportive big industry players are of Linux, they all just want to see it become another Windows (RedHat). They want to see it get monopolized. Why (other than the fact that one platform is easier to support, but there are many consistencies that don't make software development that difficult - tens of thousands of programs written for Linux are distro independant)? Consider these examples:
Oracle for Linux, even after nearly two weeks of coaxing, will not run on anything other than RedHat.
Dell addresses Linux on its systems as "version 6.2". Go figure.
Retail stores tend to not market non-RedHat or non-Rh derivatives on storeshelves (look for yourself: SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat, Corel)
Large industry players (IBM, Dell, etc.) are pushing funds into RedHat like there's no tomorrow. Now RedHat are nearly arrogant as Microsoft (" We invented the Internet^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the Open Source movement! [slashdot.org] ").
I guess I'm starting to babble here. Maybe I just can't help the fact that I love my simple, clean, small, and fast incarnation based on Slackware. Maybe we need a Windows-like baseline for Linux to become widely accepted, maybe not. All I know is that the statement from our good friends over at Turbo is a clear indication of the dangers Linux faces from the big corporate world. Think about it! They aren't supporters of Linux! They are Microsoft advocates! Everything IBM and Dell (just two examples) do is for Microsoft, but they have their big toes dipped in our pond - and we, being so desperate for corporate attention, smile and welcome them. Oracle is of course, not in this for Microsoft. They like seeing Oracle run on Sun anyway (which is fine), but it's not hard to see that they want to force anyone with huge database needs (the big players) to install RedHat ( who seems to enjoy making people suffer with incompatabilities [slashdot.org] ).
What's the solution? Is there a solution? Should we be worried? I'm not quite sure. All I know is that as a community, I think we aughta recognize the threat and realize that RedHat and other larger corporate Linux distros are not our friends. Those at the foundation of Linux development aughta keep their eyes on this and make sure software isn't written for Linux 6.2.
He might raise a valid point (Score:3)
The basic argument is that Red Hat's and Debian's make their money from support agreements, not selling packages. This might be true, can anybody who's checked out Red Hat's financials provide any insight?
As an end user I don't really care about the distribution I'm using. I'm currently using Red Hat, sort of, because I could buy it off the shelf when I bought my computer (two years ago). I'm still using it because I know where configuration files are not any loyalty to Red Hat. RPM isn't enough of an attraction to keep me, actually at this point it gets in my way due to the number of upgrades I've done from tar balls.
When I buy my SMP machine I might play with a different distribution (possibly Debian) but again there will be no real loyalty. In fact I'll probably just get the most current Cheap Bytes CD.
The flaw I see with his assumptions is that neither Red Hat or Debian will make a dime off of me unless they sell me a distribution. I've never had a problem I couldn't solve by RTFM or modifying source code. I'm sure there are many people at this stage of the game that are in the same boat. Possibly most users.
If I was running a company I'd insist on using a distribution with a good support system. They'd get money for that, but what is the ratio of hackers to corporate installations? I'd bet that the corporate installations are buried beneath the noise.
Sooner or Later (Score:3)
Re:Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:3)
I think the way I misread this on my first glance is more interesting.
Not perfect english, but this is Slashdot, right?
Excuse me but... (Score:4)
Read the article (Score:4)
As far as it seems, they don't suggest anything about Debian or Slackware or any of the other non-commercial distros, which means we'll still have the world of choice in Linux software.
And only good can really come out of standardize the basic linux install -- that's what the article points out is that all the differences in the commercial distros can cause market confusion, ala the UNIX split, and thus will cost some points for Linux in marketplace acceptence. Standardizing the base, so that you *know* you will get the same security and services as the other commercial distro will help strength the commercial sales of Linux.
Hackers aren't mainstream users (Score:4)
But as Linux, or I should say IF Linux, makes inroads into the desktop market this will change. As linux does this there will be one distribution which becomes more popular than the rest. Now at first there may be more than one attempting to enter the desktop market, but eventually one distribution will become the clear leader. As this happens more and more desktop users will come to use that distribution and they way in which it does things will become the de facto standard.
Other distributions will either have to emulate the dominant one, or be locked out of the desktop. The reason why is that end users are reluctant to learn how computers work. They'll learn enough to get by on the system they use but that is all. They're not going to learn more than one system unless forced to and no company is going to implement Linux without standardizing on a single desktop distribution. Now you will have regional favorites. The dominant distribution in Japan is unlikely to be the dominant one in the US or europe.
At the end of the desktop wars, the distributions left standing will be so similar to each other in terms of configuration and user interface, that they'll be virtually identical. At the very most you will have two camps with distributions within them being functionally identical. Isn't that what we've almost got right now with Redhat/Mandrake/Caldera/SuSe/TurboLinux on one side and Debian/Storm/Corel on the other? Now obviously these distributions aren't identical, but the distributions within each camp are similar and in some cases derived from one another.
Ultimately the various distribution companies may well find themselves making money from selling support for other distributions. I can easily see a day when Caldera offers support for Redhat and vice versa. If you're giving away the OS, what possible reason would you have to turn away money simply because someone is using another distribution that was also given away? As this happens the distributions will become even more consolidated to reduce the cost of supporting multiple variants. Then of course you'll see mergers and aquisitions and ultimately you'll have a handful of BIG companies doing corporate desktop linux. There may be a similar but different home user Linux version more suited to things like games. Much the same way that Win9x and NT are superficially similar but Win9x is targeted to home users and NT to business users.
Now this doesn't have much bearing on the hacker market. For us multiple distributions that are vastly different is the order of the day. There will always be a Debian or a Slackware in addition to a Caldera or a Redhat. We use and study computers for their own sake. Corporate users don't. For them the computer is a tool which enables them to do their jobs more productively. It is not an end in itself.
So when you read articles like this, understand that this is a suit talking and not a hacker. Competent suits understand business, that is what they do. They may not understand the technical issues behind Linux any more than they understand quantum physics. But they do understand how businesses work. They understand that the future money to be made from linux will come from selling support to other businesses which use linux. This is the real reason for the push to the desktop, $$$$$.
Forgive me if this post is slightly incoherent and repetitive as I'm slightly intoxicated at the moment.
Lee Reynolds
What's really great here is that... (Score:4)
Standardize on standards, not implementations! (Score:5)
has taught over the past 20 years, it's that
when people and organizations standardize on
open standards, allowing multiple
interoperating implementations, the world ends up
a better place than when people standardize on
a given implementation.
The web would suck a lot more than it does if
instead of having HTML/HTTP they had instead said
"You must use NCSA Mosaic and CERN httpd".
Networking with TCP/IP vs. "whatever windows or
macs use at a given time"
Mail with rfc822/smtp vs. forcing everyone to
use Eudora, Exchange, etc....
Linux already HAS a common standards base, with
the LFS/LSB, a common kernel (I suppose logically
it should just be a common kernel interface, with
different people implementing kernels...mmm,
freebsd kernel under the hood...actually, an
LSB-standard which treated BSD linux emu as an
equal player would be nice!).
Major distributions should adopt that, and other
meta-standards (each of the packaging formats
is well defined, so a tool like debian's "alien"
should be able to work across them. Adding
extra data to
converted to fully functional
Debian, Red Hat, etc. worthwhile as independent
entities is not just the bits on the disk as
an end product...the distinct marketing and
support focuses, their internal priorities, etc.,
allow users to benefit.
The "non-big-four" distributions are already basing themselves to a great degree on tools and
such provided by the "big four", customizing
marketing, implemntation, support to provide
additional value to users. (I must say I'm
slightly annoyed to see Caldera and TurboLinux
in the big-four, but not Debian...I think it's
because the original article was related to
an investor conference, and there's not yet
a major commercial Debian reseller, but
from a decision-making standpoint, the total
number of users is more important than value
of someone's stock)
Consistency, yes. Merging, no.
OSSBS - Operating System Standard Base Structure (Score:5)
Making a generic distro is EASY.
Why?
Because they are all based on UNIX and we have symbolic links.
Make a script file that goes thru every directory and file, taking note of them and their location.
Do that to every distro. You will then have a listing of all the files and their location within every distro. Do that for Standard, Advanced, and certain custom installations.
Do a simple "diff" with a script on those textfiles lists to filter out all the files that do have standard locations.
Have the script file account for the difference between a link and an actual file.
Fill in the gaps of difference between all distros using symbolic links. Ensuring that no matter which distro an application or
The biggest mess will be
Then all the slow and bloated and confused LSB has to do is just come to certain terms on what to do within the
What LSB and othe organziations fail to realize is that the longer distros are fragmented, the more so they will become fragmented. A work around solution like symbolic links (which is already done anyway on all distros, just not to the extreme logical conclusion they need to be done at)... is the best thing to do TODAY.
At that point, we can then take our time to figure out where the actual PHYSICAL files should be kept and the paths that should be considered STANDARD within the see of solid and symbolic links within our UNIX system.
A map of this Standards base can then be created and files and links and then be replaced and moved on the fly with a simple script.
This map can eventually be used by 3rd party developers so that while the Distro makers squabble over who's right and wrong about how things can be done... The developers in the meantime have something they can savely work with and be sure that it'll work on Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, Corel, TurboLinux, Slackware, etc.
My plans go much deeper. I have detailed a way to create a standards base for ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS with such extreme logic, that I doubt few people would complain with the new way Operating systems and their folders and how applications and data and user data and configuration files, etc can and SHOULD be stored in relation to the root directory of ANY operating system.
I definitely invite discussion to say the least.
-Matthew
Technetos, Inc.
Why would we? Noone else does. (Score:5)
To look at M$, we currently have Win98, W2K, Win Millenium, NT4, and even NT 3.51 still in use in a lot of places for different sorts of users and applications. Mac is going the same way. BSD has more distros then you can shake Tiamat at. Solaris has workstation and server distributions too.
One distro is never going to be everything to everyone. So what? I've never understood distro wars myself. I think each distro offers something to a certin group of users.
----
Remove the rocks from my head to send email
Re:Standardize on standards, not implementations! (Score:5)
Standards are important, and yes, that's what the Linux Standards Base is trying to do. The problem, though, is that a modern OS system has a huge number of standards, and trying to formally write them down on paper is a major task. It's a lot more than just writing down the C prototypes (although even looking at the number of C functions in libc alone is frightening); it's also documenting all of the behavioural details --- what happens in the corner cases, what the error returns are, etc., etc., etc.
And even that isn't enough to catch some compatibility problems. The classic problem in the libc 5.x days was one the stdio implementation was "cleaned up". Unfortunately, the rewrite caused programs that happened to fclose() a file pointer twice to core dump --- and netscape happened to be one of these programs. Now, calling fclose() twice violates the ANSI C specifications. It was clearly netscape which was in the wrong. But as far as users were concerned, when they upgraded to the latest version of libc 5.x, netscape broke, so it was obviously libc's fault. And from the point of view of an ISV, it's very uncomfortable to have to supply programs to a platform which can unpredictably change the rules of what's acceptable or not, even if you're in the wrong. Even the breaking of bug-comaptiblity has to be done during major version number bumps, under very carefully controlled circumstances.
Yes, this is hard; but if Linux is going to play in the big leagues, that's what's we're going to need if we want the likes of Intuit to make programs like TurboTax or Quicken to be available on Linux. (And I very much doubt that the Open Source community is going to ever provide an OSS version of TurboTax --- because it's more about having tax accounts and lawyers, which don't come cheap, and because tax code is constantly mutating.)
The other important thing to remember is that having 10 different distributions all tracking the same bug fixes in glibc and gcc and shellutils and textutils is a waste of engineering resources. Distributions distinguish each other by their installer, and their system administration tools, etc. They don't distinguish themselves (at least in a positive way, anyway) by which version of gawk or glibc or gcc they ship --- and happily enough, that's the sort of thing which standardizing will help the ISV compatibility problem.
So it's a win-win-win solution. The distributions win, because they can reduce their engineering costs. The ISV's win because they can only ship one version of their application, instead of one version for Red Hat, one version for Debian, one version for SuSE, etc. And the users win, because Linux remains unified, instead of getting fragmented like the other Unices did the last time the Unix wars were fought. (And remember, whenever we engage in this kind of intermural fighting, Microsoft ends up winning.)
Thomas: "This Has To Grow Up." (Score:5)
I'm surprised nobody has commented on the statement by Thomas that: The fact that Linux has been "dominated" by hackers is, according to Thomas, a problem? That fact has slowed innovation?
Sorry, but without the hackers there would be no Linux as we know it, much less innovation. Who else was going to do it? Who else, in fact, did it? Not to denigrate the current contributions of IBM, et al., but they were late to the party, and came only when a large amount of value had already been created.
Since the domination by hackers has, to date, led to a "slowdown in innovation," let's see what Turbolinux has contributed back to the community. Let us consider EnFuzion 6.0 [turbolinux.com]. According to the EnFuzion(TM)Software LICENSE AGREEMENT [turbolinux.com]: How about TurboCluster Server 4.0 [turbolinux.com]. According to section 1.16 of the TurboCluster Server 4.0 FAQ [turbolinux.com]: What "innovation" has Turbolinux contributed back to the community? My question is not rhetorical. I don't know.
And what does, "[t]his has to grow up" mean? Centralized control? Linux has a benevolent dictator. Perhaps corporate control?