On Tue, 28 Dec 2010, Shlomi Fish wrote:
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:55:32
From: Shlomi Fish <shlo...@iglu.org.il>
To: beginners@perl.org
Cc: Alvaro Mantilla Gimenez <u...@alvaromantilla.com>
Subject: Re: New Document:
"How to Start Contributing to or Using Open Source Software"
On Monday 27 Dec 2010 21:44:05 Alvaro Mantilla Gimenez wrote:
Hi,
I think it is not fair to pointing the reader out directly to Linux.
There are other systems out there more Open Source than Linux like OpenBSD
(for example). I think a briedfly review of these other OS would be good
for the article and, after that, let the reader to choose between Linux -
OpenBSD - FreeBSD - NetBSD, etc...
First of all, while the licence of most of the BSDs is a permissive one
whereas the licence of most of Linux is the GPL, which is more restrictive,
the GPL is still open-source. You can argue that the BSD licence and the X11
licence are more "open" or more "free" than the GPL or LGPL but that doesn't
make them more "open source".
Well, that is your opinion.
Secondly, the reason I didn't point the user to the BSDs was the same as the
reason I didn't refer them to Gentoo Linux or Archlinux: they are not ready or
even not intended for newcomers, who are the target audience of the article.
For example:
1. I tried installing PC-BSD on a VirtualBox virtual machine. After
downloading the first two CDs and installing using them, the installation
asked for the third CD which was clearly marked as "optional components".
Since I didn't download that, I tried to avoid it, at which point the
installation aborted and left the installation in an unusable, unbootable
state.
So, your very poor argument is based in your very poor experience.
From what I know of Mandriva Linux and other Linux distributions, you can
easily install them using only the first CD.
Again, based in your experience. You can install FreeBSD or OpenBSD (by
example) from just one CD and install what you want from packages or
ports. Same way as you do with those Linux distributions that need to
connect to packages repositories trough Synaptic and tools like that just
for do the same.
2. Next, I tried installing plain FreeBSD on a similar virtual machine. The
installation was made in text mode, and try as I might, it wouldn't detect the
VirtualBox internal networking interface. Someone told me that the installer
wasn't worked on for several years.
That is weird. There is a lot of people running FreeBSD on VirtualBox /
VMWare installation. So...the only clear enough on this point is: you
don't know how to run a FreeBSD system in YOUR VirtualBox
3. Someone who was able to successfully install FreeBSD, had to recompile a
large percent of the system from ports (including X, etc.) after wishing to
install something. I don't expect most newcomers to be able to tolerate this
without giving up.
Well, maybe you have a point here...but just surf the internet and see
tons of Linux forums with "newcomers" desesperate because the things does
not work as expected in their super cool Linux systems and, funny thing,
the next door guy has the same Linux and the same configuration and everything
works from him.
4. An Israeli developer who tried to install OpenBSD commented about the
hostility of the installer and how, at a point, the instructions scrolled past
and he couldn't see them.
This is the best point of your email: go to google and search for
"Installing OpenBSD in 5 minutes" (which by the way is in a Virtual
Machine) and don't say bullshit about things you don't know.
Funny note: "the instructions scrolled past and he couldn't see them"..are
you refering to dmesg??? LOL
-------
So while I don't rule out that after some experience, an open-source
enthusiast will opt to experiment with the *BSDs or with less user-friendly
Linux distributions, I cannot recommend any of them as introductory OSes, and
mentioning them as alternatives to introductory distributions will just
confuse the reader. They are out of the scope of the document.
Again, your document is OK but you don't have enough experience in all
OpenSource environment to have the only truth of the world.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
--------------------------------------------------
Alvaro Mantilla Gimenez
LPIC-1 (2001), LPIC-2 (2004),
Novell Certified Linux Administrator (2010),
Novell Certified Linux DataCenter Specialist (2010)
--------------------------------------------------
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