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Debian Wins $25K Award From LinuxWorld
Phexro writes: "According to this story at newsalert, Debian has been awarded the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award. It will be presented during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Go Debian!" Congratulations to the Debian crew for this. Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrinthine.
At least, if apt-get seems to be having problems, I can go edit /etc/apt/sources.list by hand and point to a different mirror site. I didn't see an option like that with MandrakeUpdate.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Yes.
Oh yeah, I bet that I would find a truckload of non-techies that won't agree with you. What you are saying is that you think it is easy. That doesn't necesarily mean that everybody thinks it is easy.
dselect is a pain, but it's not that bad.
You can't make up your mind can you, because you are contradicting yourself.
Also I said nothing about removing the text based install, It is just that a graphical install should be the default if not otherwise specified.
thank god for debian, the stable release may not be out as fast as the other distro, but the when it's out, it'll be damn stable. unlike some of the other software producers( *cough*windowsNT*cough*).
when the thought that counts, get something else. for some quality, get debian or slackware. =)
"you get hit and your head goes ping" --rocky horror picture show
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
yeah. how bout increasing the frequency of releases so i dont have to wait YEARS to see a new stable debain ? all the hardware on the planet is useless if i cant get a modern stable distro. cmon guys - speed it up !
It says on the buttons what happens when you click on them. It doesn't say on the prompt what happens when you type something... actually, it usually doesn't even say what you can type at all.
Now, if you take this as any sort of advocacy towards GUI tools you're wrong. In essence, I agree with you - I just tried to answer your question
May we live long and die out
There are so many things that make Debian the best. I was a Stampede developer a while back, and I made the move to Debian after frustration with the way Stampede was going. but I digress...
There are a couple of issues people have with Debian, first, they claim that it's always late. How is it late? Unlike some other distros that release 'betas' every once in awhile, Debian maintains a very stable stable, and a more risque devel version. I personally use the devel (woody) release, but when I'm building a server, or a workstation for work, I use the stable. Best of both worlds... you can have the most current versions of everything, or stick with the tried and true. Sounds like it's fair to me. The releases are immaterial for the most part, seeing as an apt-get upgrade -u keeps your packages current, or bugfixed.
Next people complain about the way Debian sticks to their Free Software Guidlines. It's important to stick to morals, which is important with all these gigantic Linux companies. Someone has to set the standard and do the Right Thing. I can't believe they don't get more respect considering how they've defined morals, and stuck to them, in spite of backlash over KDE et al, and everything else. It's truly admirable.
Fact is, I can convert an RPM package or install a third-party package if I want, so it's not like running Debian locks me out of proprietary software. I run Codewarrior, and ApplixOffice without any problems. I've even tried some betas of KDE2, all install and work perfectly. Another benefit of the extensive testing I mentioned earlier.
So, don't flame Debian. Even if you don't run it, you can respect their tenants. Doing the right thing, building a stable solid distro and ignoring commercial interests is what matters to them, and I have nothing but respect for them.
(Incidentally, I've bought a bunch of Debian merch, like a very nice T-shirt which has a slogan that I think applies very well to Debian "Code matters more than commercials" Seems like a laudable goal to me)
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
So what do you do for a living?
You can use unstable (which hardly ever is unstable) if you would like. just because we don't make a dang press realse and have shiny boxes in stores doesn't mean we are not producing!
They do. Although there was a recent skirmish started by an idiotic faction that wanted non-free removed. What the hell does this have to do with the story though?
I don't think I'm going to touch this post, except to say you're sure to enjoy our next release, after potato.
As for the sig, it's a brainteaser -- figure it out yourself..
--
see shy jo
You're either real good, or real free-time-enhanced....
People must really look at what being part of linux and things like debian really mean in a social context. When people *donate* their time for something it's because they believe in it. It's kind of like the people who work for the salvation army, the peace corps, or the make a wish foundation they are all efforts to take our noblest impulses and make them more effective. In history it's traditionally been called reform and it tried to offset the social darwinistic interpretation of humanity and make something more than just money grubbing. That's why I have traditionally tried to help those less fortunate than myself and help various causes. This is a good thing. Of course not everyone can work for no money because humanity is composed of humans and they have basic and not so basic needs to be met. The world will not wither away and your job will not be compromised by you say spending every saturday or say 1 hour after work doing something for debian.
Respond to s
Before or after they: 1. Made the distribution non floppy friendly. 2. Force source builds of various handy packages that people actually use like various ones in debian to get any third party stuff of merit to work. 3. Follow the "trendy" thing to do and change their versioning to suit a bunch of slack jawed yokels. 4. Actually upgrade things in a sensible and timely manner without repartioning things. There are many, many, rasons not the least of which is that I like the fact that people actually care about my distribution. Damn ignorant trolls. And I suppose you believe that a stone bleeds right?
Respond to s
My fellow posters have said it better than I have that having an official release is subjective and that it really should be looked at in terms of other things. A good comparison would be perhaps redhat's experimental distro (can't remember the name of it) and say unstable debian. While you can say that there are bugs in a development process there really haven't been too many show stopping bugs as of late. By any indication this is a good thing. I have been installing components that have worked for me quite well from an initial base of slink (debian 2.1) and have retrieved new packages from unstable and have found little problem with this. I also know that it's rock solid when you have slink and the like. However the level of archaicness starts to feel on you. Debian is more of an ideal for what a linux should be and I think that since it is an ideal something has to suffer a bit and if all it is is an "official" stamp then so be it. And yes there are bugs in debian in fact you could say that there are perhaps a rather average ammount. I still would like a good comparison between experimental for redhat's line and debian's unstable.
Respond to s
Just FYI, Potato is slated for August 9th (or abouts AFAIK) if the Test Cycle 3 goes well. Latest kernel and all that jazz.
Actually the term reds isn't really a totally correct one. The real "reds" were the individuals of the bolshevisk persuasion who fought against the white army and ultimately became the rulers in what is now the Russian federation. As a amateur historian I should know. It would be more correct to call the largest body of communists that have any real power Maoists or sympathizers of the castro regime.
Respond to s
Isn't there a browser program for it?
Respond to s
SLACK-jawed yokels!!!!! SLACK!!
guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!
:))))))))))))))))
The freedom of speech is relative. For instance in The Netherlands, there are a some things you can be fined for if you say them. So I think free as in beer is a more universal freedom. (In Europe that is, In the US there seems 2 B some strange 21 year law???) SysV
"What does it say about an organization that releases a flagshhip product that has thousands of full time programmers doing supposedly quality work and that still manages to contain various anoying bugs and failures?"
Debian uses a piecemeal upgrade process so it is hard to compare directly to Red Hat. I'm sure Debian has a huge bug tracking database like Red Hat. However, Debian is always in development and can use the excuse that bugs should be expected in development.1. Debian's package management system rocks. Just "apt-get update" (updates the list of available packages) and "apt-get distupgrade" (was it apt-get upgrade? w/e, it updates all available packages).
r e-thing-that-he-does-at-his-lectres free.
2. It is stable as heck. Whenever debian releases a "stable" release, they really mean it. If you want more modern libraries, you can just as easily get the "unstable" version, a bleeding-edge repository that is still just as stable as what normally gets released as "stable" by commercial distributions.
3. It very strongly upholds the free software ideals. For those that want certain non-free versions, there is a separate repository for non-free software. The main distribtion installed by defalt is 100% pure-as-in-stallman's-weird-church-of-free-softwa
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
No shiny boxes in stores? I was at babbages a week ago and saw yellow debian boxes on the shelves. With the plastic wrap reflecting light at just the right angle they did indeed shine.
--Have a Johsonville brat.
Heh, I was wondering when we were in the red myself...
Yes, broadly speaking
That being said for example using MS products makes a statement rather implicetly stated that you agree with the procedures that they utilize in development and marketing. Same with patronizing certain stores and the like.
I'm not so sure about that. It could imply a different statement, like : " I believe that having M$oft tools is more important than figthing M$oft", or even "The way to fight M$oft is not avoid to buy their software". Or a thousand other ones.
Implicit politic statements are hard to guess. Better ask people to explicit them.
Ciao
----
FB
Well, the procedures have changed a bit since the days of ~100-200 developers; I never met anyone, nor even had my key signed, for the first few years I was in the project. I only met another developer in the flesh 10 months ago (and then a whole bunch of them), at Atlanta Linux Showcase last October. Since then, I've met a few more (out in the Bay Area in March). I've still not met most of the developers; pairwise, I doubt any of us has met a majority of project members (although maybe Wichert and a few others who get around a lot have).
I guess it would be interesting to see a graph of "who's met who" in Debian. I suspect there are two large clusters (Europe and North America) with links between them, and lots of nodes off on their own or in small groups.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Yeah, but it is roughly equal to the market cap of Corel.
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
Debian's installer is easy right now. dselect is a pain, but it's not that bad. What makes a graphical installer inherently inherently easier than a text-based one? The text-based one has a greater likelyhood of actually working on a given box, doesn't depend on as much, and can present the same information as a graphical installer. Why do so many people associate pixels with ease of use and characters with arcane command lines?
Don't get me wrong, I've tried most Linux Distributions, and they certainly beet Micro$oft Winblows, but Debian is absolutely the best among them. Sure, the installation doesn't look that smooth, but if you just take the time and read the excellent manual, there should be no problems getting Debian running. And for are your other problems, there's a great community of Debian users and experts out there on the mailing-lists and IRC, who all where Newbies once and want to share their enthousiasm.
I could go on for ever with the advantages of Debian, so I just list some of them.
From the user's perspection: Easy upgrades, no problem looking for packages, clear filesystem-structure, nice extra tools like sendmailconfig,......
Further, the whole Linux community benefits from the efforts of Debian: The Bugtracking system, the promotion of Free (as in speech) Software and all those distributions based on Debian (Corel, Storm).
Let's hope for the benefit of the Linux Community, this will give Debian a big hop in popularity.
GUI need not mean "pixels."
For example. I'm a GUI-loving wuss. I much prefer a GUI over a command line. But, I dislike gnome and kde and even Xfree for configuration.
Instead, I prefer linuxconf. It's ncurses-based. (It's gtk-based, too, but I use it in ncurses mode) Editing all those dotfiles by hand is, of course possible and would give me more control, but when I'm in unfamiliar territory, a menu-based configurator helps me learn what functionality is available to me.
I much prefer the DOS EDIT environment over that of emacs or VI. Because It's intuitive. I use VI because it is much more robust than DOS EDIT. A combination of the two would be a godsend for me.
I much prefer cfdisk and mandrake's partition table editor on install over FDISK. Not because it's pretty and skinned and colorful, but because it has a better interface, and that interface is (somewhat) intuitive. It describes visually what functionality is available to me in a way that is easy to grasp and picture in my head.
I much prefer GRUB to LILO. (not only for the interface, but it's a very nice touch.)
I much prefer SFM and MC to the command line when organizing my piles of ranomly downloaded MP3s.
I prefer MP3C to (cdparanoia $options|$encoder)
I prefer mutt to mail.
etc. etc. etc....
I haven't used Debian's configuration tool. But If I can infer from the comments, it seems that it would benefit from an ncurses-based menu system, or a better-designed one if it is already ncurses-based... to make it easier to use in the console.
If you're a "GUI-loving wuss" and you like VI, check out gvim.
The Last AntiHero
...Linux users can wipe that smug smile off their face and go twirl their propeller caps
They don't and can't keep up with all the commercial Linux distros. Witness their ultra-slow release cycle. Hardcore Deb boosters will say that this is just extreme quality control, but it's also because there aren't enough developers to implement new features fast enough. They could cut corners to keep up with the big distros, but that would negate everything Debian.
In case you're too dense (I've been reading Debian-devel for about 9 months, and just figured it out 30 seconds ago :), 'see shy jo' is an anagram for 'joey hess' :).
We don't produce those. It's VA, SGI and uhm somebody else. Debian sells NOTHING. We make no profits and only survive off of donations and awards like this.
maybe they can finally get some xfree86-4 debs out :P
Okay... maybe you have a point. But would you please like to post this somewhere relevant?
I for one would be really interested to see what kind of discussion comes of this (I would have moderated you up), but if you insist on attaching it to stories that have nothing to do with it, it's just going to get moderated into oblivion.
Ah yes, the illustrious Debian fetish.
*laughs*
What an uninformed opinion. How would you like to define 'stable'? Do you define it as an official release or as a tried-tested-and-true distribution?
If you define it as the first, you should be more then happy running frozen or unstable. After all, look at some of what the rest of the world calls 'release' quality software.. Gnome 1.0.0 *laughs* Redhat 5.0 *laughs again*
Seriously though, Debian has the highest release standards out of any distribution on the market. They don't have shareholders to answer to, they don't worry about making money.. Instead, they focus on meeting their stated goals.
Ever since I started on Debian a year and a bit ago, I've watched the unstable branch of the package repository break about 3 times. And 2 of those times were just dependencies that I waited a week for other packages to catch up on.
Anyway, the moral of the story:
If you need a system that is a fscking ROCK for stability: Get stable. There isn't any other Linux distro on the market that is as tested. Barring that, get FreeBSD.
If you need a system that will last longer for uptime then your power company, and you want to be on the leading edge of software releases, try unstable.
The most anoying thing is that you have to build pine from source but the process is well documented and there are even some non official sources for binary pine debs as well.
Respond to s
I suspected that the money would go to something more worthwhile than hiring someone. I posted in great haste -- what I was really trying to say is that given the numbers of people who are working for Debian (for free), $25k doesn't seem like a very big reward, since it doesn't even come close to what a single professional programmer makes.
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
I know some people who have ran windows without a crash for years does that mean it's 100% bugfree? Often times it takes that new or strange instruction to bring the kernel to it's knees.
Respond to s
fast well 386's must have been fast compared to ENIAC cheap to good ol' Bill Gates is larger than your current salary per year good well some people think that Budweiser is good too
Respond to s
I don't get it
Respond to s
What does it say about an organization that releases a flagshhip product that has thousands of full time programmers doing supposedly quality work and that still manages to contain various anoying bugs and failures? The size of debian is a good thing. Debian has more packages that are more or less guaranteed to work than any other distribution in the world. Debian cares more about stability, security, reliability, etc than most. Hell even unstable debian is usually more stable than most other distros in final form and definately more stable than others unstable area.
Respond to s
As a small time financial contributor ( a few buck here and there in cash donations as well as time spent teaching newbies) I can say that IMHO every little bit helps.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
Although I thought Debian had "non-free" disclaimer somewhere on their package... or has a recent version gone completely "free" (as in speech)?
do any debian people here know what would (or could) be done with the $25,000? i noticed a few months back sun donated an ultra60...do they use this sort of money to buy extra hardware to help porting efforts? and if so, who's house does it get installed at? or in the true debian spirit, does it just stay in the box it was shipped in and everyone argues about where it will go on IRC for years and the thing never actually gets 'released'?
Make sure /etc/apt/sources.lists contains a list of servers and also tell it too use the 'stable' and 'frozen' flavor. After that your done. I wonder about your 'more easy' part; can't find anything more easy then "apt-get distupgrade" myself.
Does anyone know... will this affect the developement of Debian's distro of HURD?
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Compared to how many that work at Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE? (even Hardware companies probably have more people paid to work on Linux, like Abit or VA).
Congradulations Debian, they earned the award. But, I just sort of have to look at that number and wonder how they manage to keep the all volnteer effort competitive with all the commercial Linux distributions. Anyone have any idea what other forms of income they have? Or how many (if any) people actually develop Debian "full time?"
Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrnthine.
Hah! Debian 2.2 is STILL not out in stable! It's been almost a year and a half, and they don't publish upgrades to their blessed packages unless it's a big security fix, and it can't break anything, and has to be tested first.
That's ok with me, except that they take too long between releases, and unless you want to break (!) your package setup, you can't upgrade your samba, apache, etc.., or dpkg/apt-get has a hissy fit. I switched after too many of these kind of problems, so maybe if Debian FIXED their methods and procedures so that upgrades to stable packages were easy to get without switching distros they could get more users, and therefore developers, in their distro.
Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep in a shared include somewhere.
Way to go guys! I'm a proud user of Debian, and I wouldn't change for anything. A good friend of mine is a developer for Debian, and I'd like to take this time to thank him, and all the others for their time, and excellent work. This is what the Linux/Open Source community is all about. It doesn't always take dollar signs to make something worth doing, or even to make it good, it just takes heart. Keep up the good work!!
I think that the free question is a good one. Did Debian go completely free, and drop all proprietary software? f so, this makes for a huge advance in the world of free software, showing distro makers that what we all want is a completely free OS AND Software, and that we are loathe to accept any less. The only proprietary software we needed was Netscape, and now we have Mozila. Free our software!
There was a small section in the article that said that many of the Debian developers have never met face to face. Whilst this is clearly true, most of them will never have met this way, I thought that before you get accepted as a Debian developer you had to go through a face to face meeting, to exchange public keys and the like. Is this true? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
On a side note, I, and most of friends who use Linux, are big fans of Debian. The one guy loves stability, and gives not a fig for the bleeding edge. Another really goes for the bleeding edge, and always uses the most up-to-date "unstable" releases. A couple of us are such awful sysadmins, that we need something like the Debian package system in order to use Linux without having to reinstall regularly. Lastly, I go for their right and proper focus on free-as-in-freedom.
This is quite a spread of abilities and desires. Debian meets them all. That's a real trick for a Linux distribution. They've earned the award. Time for a big round of applause...
-- "This is the Space Age, and we are Here To Go" - W.S.Burroughs
I'm using unstable (though it's hardly that) and I update every week to keep on the bleeding edge for the software I use.
You can't get much fresher unless you watch freshmeat.net every day, pull down the source and build it yourself.
So, stop your bitching about how out-of-date debian is. It isn't.
Or else I have some swamp land in Florida I wish to sell you. Really shiny boxes mean nothing about a stable product look at windows and their "quality software". So much for shiny boxes.
Respond to s
I mean, I'm happy for Debian and all, but I think that $25k is a little short for an award of this calibur.
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Yeah, I was there for the keynote, but there's not much that can help my memory. Thanks for knowing what I meant!
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Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
i've been using debian/gnu for 3 years.
every time i pop that rescue.bin in and get that friendly boot message, i can't help but get 9 inches of pure USDA Homegrown Woodrow.
and just what the hell does see shy joe mean, anyway??!!
Most new good programs don't have *BSD ports. Take a look at sun's jvm for instince. You want official java support don't look to *BSD.
Respond to s
Actually, that sounds like what RMS said at Linux World Expo last year.
"It's like giving the 'Han Solo Award' to the 'Rebel Fleet' itself!"
Would be nice if some of that $ was used on making a good graphical installer for debian.
IMHO debian is a kickass distribution, the only thing holding it back is the lack of a good graphical installer like RedHat or Mandrake has.
Hmmm, personally I do say "immhoe" and "eye-anal" - what does everyone else do?
The funny thing about communicating via text is that pronunciation becomes very non-standard. Do people say "ay-pee-tee" or "apt"? Interesting.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
That's the way most programs that aren't totally comercial in nature usually get created in the linux world. Without doing it for the sake of doing it there would e previous little around.
Respond to s
Hey why don't we make a rule that ACs can't get FP if it ISN'T even a F...... post?
http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam
What an award for the crapiest distro?... Doen't even come close to Debian...
http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam
>I am not here to flame up a distro-based >religious war, but I really wonder how being >late all the time can be considered as >an "elegant" trait ?
Haven't you ever heard the phrase "fashionably late"? Well, that's how Debian is. Late, but always classy and elegant.
"the devil finds work for idle circuits"
I'll Delurk to answer this because I resisted trying Debian for the same reasons, and now I wish I had tried it sooner.
I too was very concerned when I considered ordering Debian CD's and found the "most recent version" to be horribly out of date. The truth is, though, the latest stable release isn't even what most people use.
So, when I was finally fed up with Mandrake, I RTFM'd and installed the frozen (almost released) potato version. It worked just peachy, no problem. Then I upgraded to the "unstable" woody. Still no problem. So with Debian I now have a system with newer software than most distros, and it's more stable than RedHat and Mandrake were for me.
As for installation, obviously you can't grab new potato or woody CD's from LinuxMall or whatever (and the few places I found that sold potato snapshot CD's were relatively expensive (at least for me, I'm poor)).
I had no trouble installing over the net, though. (And I recommend using apt-get instead of dselect; it's much quicker to just install whatever you want, whenever you want, instead of browsing through the huge list of packages in one sitting.)
Anyway, now that I'm using Debian I could never go back to another distro. The package management does indeed kick ass. It puts rpm to shame. Suddenly decide you want LyX installed? Forget putting a CD in or opening up your browser and fumbling around with rpm's and trying to get all the dependencies installed in the right order; just "apt-get install lyx" and LyX with all its dependencies are automatically downloaded and installed for you. Upgrading packages with new versions, and in fact upgrading the entire system to a new version, is just as easy.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a Debian developer or anything, and I'm _not_ one of those people who thinks Debian is all elite and everything else is for wussies. I'm just very happy with it myself, and explaining why, especially since you're resisting trying it for the same reasons I did.)
IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
IANAL = I Am Not A Laywer
It's like the rebel guys giving Luke Skywalker the prize. Or something like that.
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Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I have been using Slackware for years and once i deviced to switch to another distro, because Slackware was lacking new libs.
The I tried RedHat and SuSE. They were awful, they i switched back to Slackware and waited for a glibc2 release.
Not i am using 7.1 and after seeing a Debian hype in many sites i wanted to check it. Af far as i understand its last stable release (2.1) is too old and even their next stable release (2.2), which isn't out yet will bundle *old* software & libs.
There was some mention in the package managment. Once i saw someone trying to install Debian 2.0. He gave up when he realized that he had to answer 2000 questions.
But I am not saying that Debian is bad. If so many people love it, it must have really good features. So please help to to figure out what they are...
Its a big, er thing, yeah thats right a thing!! I never was any good at art.
eh? what does this box here do then ma?
I really dont understand why people are so big about debian only having free software on their dist. I have never had to pay for a linux dist unless you cant the cost to burn it. I stear away from buying linux software, I go for the non-commerial ones. So please someone educate me. why is it such a big deal for debian to carry all free apps? I guess I dont get it. -Rick S. "Charlie Don't Surf!" -Lt Colonel Kilgore
And debian has a particular role: it is a concience of the whole Linux industry. Glad to see them getting this award - keep on with the good work!
It sounds like you are going to get your troll ass sued! And just in case you a stupid enough to think this could work, think about this, you are collecting fees on a "anonymous distributed system" so where does the money go, cause that is where the lawyers will follow (if you really can hide the money I'm sure you'll find a far more worthwhile job in organised crime). I think we all know that RMS believes strongly in the use of copyright to prevent EXACTLY what you want to do and I'm sure he will still have enough friends in the world to pay more lawyers than you can handle.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Red Hat and quality don't exactly go hand in hand. Why should sendmail and GNOME be forced upon me. Why the bad broken configs? There is little organization on the red hat cd at all. Just a big directory of .rpm files and no good organization. Try using unstable or better one of the most stable releases like slink.
Respond to s
Your reasons for not using debian are quite flimsy. You can have just as much cutting edge stuff with debian that you can in any other distro. (I do realize that there are some applications where the authors do not support debian so it takes a week or two for a package manager to make .deb available) It runs beautifully on my Compaq laptop with the latest eye candy available, and we even have some debian woody boxes that are running the latest 2.4-test kernel. Furthermore, I would rather have quality control than cutting edge on my mission critical servers any day. And the package management system is excellent. Maintenance and upgrades on these boxes is a breeze!
And with strong desktop distro's like corel and storm (which is better by far) your arguments become impotent. Personally, I would rather fight than switch.
OK, here's an idea that struck me as people debate on this story the worth of time, the worth of programmers, the greatness or lameness of various distros ... (esp. b/c someone raised the issue of buying Linus a long-distance beer)
;)
BUY THEM FOOD.
That's right. Imagine a sort of pizza-and-beer account that you could contribute to, the way that people can / could buy Theo of OpenBSD pizza.
if you like a certain distro, you can give them some virtual calories by sending them some money online.
for instance:
welcome to the hungry programmers food page:
I want to give [check one]
o $5
o $10
o $15
o $300,000
to the [check one]
o debian project
o FSF contributors
o both the debian project and FSF contributors
[check one]
o pizza fund
o beer fund
And the music industry would have to jump on board, too, of course;)
Amazon, do you want to redeem yourself?! host the payments, and match them
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Anything that runs sluggishly on a 486/66 with about 50Mbs of RAM+swap with a mach32 videocard is really not all that nice. Can you recommend a better product?
Respond to s
As the French have been quoted as saying anything can be seen as a political statement because politics intercets almost anything.
That being said for example using MS products makes a statement rather implicetly stated that you agree with the procedures that they utilize in development and marketing. Same with patronizing certain stores and the like.
No one is immune. I will support microsoft no longer in my life.
They are moving towards a world where software is no longer my own and I have to upgrade a several thousand dollar computer every week. Thank you but no.
Respond to s
You said:
"Congratulations to the Debian crew for this.
Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure
that Debian puts on other distros -- just by
existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when
it comes to Free software, and for proving
that elegant upgrade systems don't have to
be glitzy or labyrnthine."
I am not here to flame up a distro-based religious war, but I really wonder how being late all the time can be considered as an "elegant" trait ?
I mean, Debian is famous (notorious) for its lateness. Its "official" version almost always lag behind, compare with others.
True, being fast doesn't mean sharp, but Debian's lateness is something else altogether.
I mean, look at the "potato" release - or should I say, has yet to be released - other distros are carrying newer version of the utilities and kernel code already, in their RELEASE, OFFICIAL versions.
True, Debian does put a lot of effort into its Ps and Qs, but Ps and Qs alone is not _everything_. Sometimes a user needs some advance feature offered by a newer version of a certain utilities, and because of Debian's insistence on getting EVERYTHING in line, most of the time the utilities in Debian distros are of older version, and the user who needs the new feature ain't gonna get it.
That is why sometimes I am forced to use distros other than Debian.
But anyway, congratulation to Debian, the Debian folks have worked hard to earn the prize, despite the too often lateness for Debian releases.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...your pocket change is welcome. It costs my company more than
$25,000 an hour just to keep up the fat pipes goin 'across the sea'.
That Debian is some real bargain technology!
-=(V)0(V)0cr0(V)3=-
Well, since we've never been in the red, that's hardly a problem.
--
see shy jo
here is the non blue version.
Can anyone explain exactly why "Linux" was always highlighted in blue? I thought most buzzwords were clear enough without making them a different color.
Please note that I am a strong fan of Linux and run it as my main operating system, but I don't think it needs distinction among other words in a sentence.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan