Of course. Debian is only practical in the real world for a handful of things. But there is nobody in all of GNU/Linux who doesn't benefit from the work done by these people. The majority of kernel code comes from paid developers it's true, but the Debian project submits plenty of patches. The same goes for Gentoo. This is the whole point of the open source movement. This is why and how the organizations Andrej mentions were able to collaborate on bringing Linux/390 and z/Linux to the market. They have had a working business relationship for their entire respective existences, despite the fact they are in direct competition with one another. It's really brilliant, they get tremendous benefits in terms of stability, release cycle, features, and standardization for their customers and it allows them to focus their competitive energies on bringing the best possible service and support to their particular type of customer. It hasn't got anything to do with doing good for the sake of doing good. It's just doing what makes sense.
Erik Johnson On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Scott Rohling <scott.rohl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Yeah but.. that's where distros based on Debian come in. Personally, I > like the idea of an open source only distro that you expound upon with > closed AND open source packages to focus on a particular need/audience > (e.g. Ubuntu and desktop) > > Scott > > On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Adam Thornton > <athorn...@sinenomine.net>wrote: > >> On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: >> >> >>> Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their >>> own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open >>> source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that >>> was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the >>> time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it >>> hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source >>> proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. >>> Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did >>> this time. >>> >> >> "Almost." >> >> I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one >> standpoint, but irritating from several others. >> >> Adam >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or >> visit >> http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
