Joey Hess wrote:
>
> George Bonser wrote:
> > Yes, Red Hat is well on the way to becoming Microsoft-like Linux. They
> > screech their shrill cries of "But everything we do is open source" but
> > when you look at it you also find that it is also incompatable with every
> > other distro and would take so much trouble to modify as to being just as
> > easy to completely rewrite it ... the right way.
> >
> > I tried porting the Red Hat GUI printer management stuff to Debian once
> > but gave up once I realized that it was going to take more than a couple
> > of hours and involve modifying several files. That was about a year ago, I
> > am not sure if they have cleaned it up since then.
>
> I can't see this as anything but redhat bashing. I happen to maintain the
> package of rpm for debian (since I maintain alien, which uses rpm). I
> haven't considered rpm expecially difficult to "port" (definitly a misnomer)
> to debian.
>
> Looking at the debianized source of rpm, I do notice I've modifed some 10 or
> 20 files. Thinking back, this did take more than a couple of hours. But
> compared to many other things I've debianized, it was cake.
>
> I'm not interested in participating in yet another redhat flame war. I'm
> speaking up only to say that I think the fact you base this posting on are
> flawed.
The facts may not be here yet, although the 'Heinz ketchup'
remark is revealing, but that doesn't mean they won't happen in
short order.
I don't trust RH because they are RH, but because they have such
dominant position in the Linux market that they are on the verge
of a de facto monopoly. The monopoly status will occur when Linux
application makers decide they can't afford to make different
packages for the different distros and just settle on RH as the
default (doesn't this sound familiar?). This is why a basic
standard for Linux distros is so important.
--
Ed C.
