On 7 May, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> The impression I get is that things having been moving too fast. We seem
> to be edging towards the situation commercial Unix was in, with 4 or 5
> slightly incompatible distributions and users who support their own brand
> of Linux to the exclusion of all others. The original concept seems to
> have got lost along the way
>
> I read postings saying RedHat should fix this or that, that xos has a bug
> free lp or whatever. I thought the driving force behind the development of
> Linux was that people got on and fixed the bugs themselves.
Please allow me to clarify Red Hat's position on bug fixes. ANY bug fix
we ourselves create (or which is emailed to us and we believe is
appropriate) is posted back to the author/project team of the package.
We also release ALL our code under appropriate 'free' licences such as
the GPL. That is why other Linux distribitions use RPM and our system
admin tools.
As people know - there is commercial support for Red Hat Linux. We
support our distribution because we know it (thoroughly). We do not
know other Linux distributions anywhere near as well (which is hardly
surprising). In all honesty, we CANNOT support them...
There are definitely some fragmentation problems in the Linux community
- but once all the other distributions catch up and release glibc
compliant versions we will all be very much more aligned than is
currently the case.
There will always be a very great deal of commonality between Linux
distributions as the kernel, compiler and libraries will have to eb the
same...
> With regard to Joe Sixpack, I think there has got to be a version that has
> a really stable kernal, together with known bug free programs so that a
> newcomer can get Linux to work on a basic windoze box. This might mean
> stepping back 2 or 3 three versions rather than try ro go for the leading
> edge stuff. I agree with what Shawn says above. Get someone hooked on
> Linux first, then encourage them to move on to newer leading edge stuff if
> that is what they want. That means making it fairly painless to get
> started.
Stepping back two or three versions will simply get you something that
is lacking two or three versions of security and bug fixes. There is NO
WAY I could recommend someone install Red Hat 3.0.3 and then connect
the machine to the Internet! This does not mean that Red Hat 3.0.3 was
buggy - it's just that the security holes that no-one knew about (and
hardware bugs like the Pentium f00f problem) would leave that machine
completely vulnerable to today's hackers.
--
Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Red Hat Software Inc. Phone: +1-919-547-0012 Fax: +1-919-547-0024
4201 Research Commons Suite 100, 79 TW Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park,
NC 27709, USA
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