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Why Mandrake is Too Cool for UnitedLinux
An anonymous reader says "Mandrake's lastest community (spam) newsletter contains their explanation as to why they won't join in on UnitedLinux. Besides the obvious geek-fun of rolling their own distro, they claim that the underlying idea of UnitedLinux is based on a flawed comparison to the Unix world of the 80's. " I think the whole UnitedLinux thing is lame- the distros that want
to be compatible already are. UL is just the 2nd tier distros trying to get attention and ink away from the "evil forces" in North Carolina. I'll just
stick to the best distribution and watch
the fun from afar ;)
It's redhatesque but it's unique. It happens to be a damn fine distribution also.
Best distro eh? Thats just *begging* to begin a flame war!
Well, yes, considering the best distros can be found here and here.
Personally I like the idea of United Linux. There's no reason that all Linux venders can't use the same base for rpm compatibility, etc. It'll hapen one way or another. Do you want one company to control the standards, or a shared effort?
I think the idea of UL is horribly flawed (and rather arrogant on its part), and the underlying premise of your reasoning for supporting UL equally flawed.
It isn't necessary to have One True packaging scheme, or One True distro to which all must maintain binary compatability, in order to effectively release binaries.
It has already been demonstrated by the folks at Blender, VMWare, Id, Loki, and others that it is quite possible to release binaries that are distribution agnostic. These real world examples, all of which install and run just fine on my Source Mage and Gentoo boxes, as well as my Debian, Mandrake, and Suse boxes, exist despite naysayers saying it isn't possible, and claiming that UL, or UL+Red Hat, bring a much needed cohesion to GNU/Linux.
Nonsense. It is an effort to impose a proprietary embrace-and-extended standard on a community that is doing just fine with consensual standards where they make sense, and a wide open, free and fair marktetplace that encourages choice everywhere else.
Telling commercial vendors that they should package their wares up as RPMs aimed at one (or two) distributions, when it is quite possible, and vastly more desirable, to package them up in standard tar.bz2 or tar.gz format along with a README listing the required libraries+versions, as well as a statically linked "last resort" fallback binary in parallel with the dynamically linked binary and thereby make them compatible with almost every distribution out there, is a terrible disservice to both the Linux community at large, and the vendors themselves who are being misled and excluding a big chunk of their target market.
This nonsense only serves the interests of the purveyors of UL, at the expense of virtually everyone else, and at the cost of our freedom of choice as GNU/Linux users. There is IMHO absolutely nothing good about this whatsoever, regardless of what your favorite distro happens to be, and even though I am not a Mandrake fan per se, I applaud them for their courage in standing up to this nonsense.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It is a basic principle of dynamic libraries that versions and functionality changes between releases. Ever notice how many different versions of Microsoft's DLLs you have on your Windows box? That's no coincidence - Windows developers are forced to incorporate the version of the DLL that works with their application. Linux provides a far superior development model, allowing publishers to statically link the correct library into their binary. Mozilla does it; Oracle does it; why can't the rest of the vendors get a clue and do the same thing?
.so or .dll to fix a problem in a library used in a number of applications, without having to rebuild every single one.
Ugh. Is this a troll? Am I missing something? Staticically linked libraries are not a 'far superior' development model. Seriously. If you want to use your system efficiently, you really don't want every application completely self-contained. That's a lot of redundancy, and thereofre, al ot of waste. Not to mention the distribution of bug fixes. Linux or Windows, it's much nicer if I can download/build a new
If you want everything self-contained, then throw yourself back to some single-tasked OS from the 70's. If you want to take advantage of modern advances in application and systems design, you're just going to have to get "used to" the idea of some standard that applications can conform to. This could be the LSB or a guide from the OS vendor to which an application is tailored, but you have to have something. Otherwise, your wasting alot of (system/manpower) resources maintaining n-hundred copies of the same statically-linked library distributed throughout your system.
Welcome to the world of modern software. Have a nice day.
-Andrew
Indeed, and I really wonder about the hostility against united linux.
Ok, they have caldera+ransom love onboard, that may explain it.
But the notion that LSB is enough to get a common base for installing binary software is complete nonsens. Yeah, it works in theory, but in practice, for enterprise ready software, you _want_ to test on an actual platform, not hope that everyone will play well along the standards.
LSB is a good thing, but nicely written standards don't compensate for excessive regression testing on a real environment (which is what united linux gives us)
Especially with such a complex beast like a GNU/linux/whatever environment - hell, this mindset fails with simple things like tcp and http. What does MDK think "reference implementations" are for?
And please, can we stop all this nonsens about "monopolisation", "per seat license" and stuff in combination with united linux?
The GPL is the GPL is the GPL
the biggest problem is NOT rpm.. it's software developers trying to use a package manager as an installer which is VERY wrong.
you dont try and use windows-update to install photoshop, so why the hell are linux programmers doing the same? There is an excellent installer package available to all and is top notch... It's from loki, and doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out...
the other problem is the overwhelming desire by EVERY programmer to use incompatable and bleeding libs.. if you are writing an app for the masses, USE COMMON LIBS THAT ARE ON CURRENT DISTROS. you dont see apps sold for windows that use pre-pre alpha graphics libs that are being designed for the next windows release... so why do linux users have to suffer? developers that cant keep their hands out of the CVS for the libs installed on their machine either need to be slapped or forced to publically state that "My program XYZ WILL NOT WORK ON A STANDARD LINUX INSTALL... See my requirements list for why"
and a standard linux install is RH7.2,7.3 Mandrake 8.2 or whatever. just list it, take the time to be sure your users can actually compile your app. Or offer up a completely statically linked version... no worries about libs there...
Linux is ready for prime time.. now only if the app developers would start getting ready.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Mandrake is right on when they say "MandrakeSoft would gain nothing by joining United Linux, and doing so would damage our reputation." Mandrake's claim to fame is their ease of use and GUI utilities, which have been praised and touted in this thread. They are not limited to the desktop, but they do it very well and that is their core competency. The are traditionally not the hardend server Linux you would think of (yes, of course Mandrake makes a fine server, I'm talking about their focus and perception). The UL crew have been very specific on what their target market is; not the desktop, the enterprise server, even to the exclusion of the desktop. Why then would Mandrake be interested in joining such a server focused group? As state, they wouldn't. Joining UL would force them to compete in an area where they are neither the leader or have a competitive advantage. Sure, you can believe all the sanctimonious hoorah they spout if you want, but bottom line is it's bad business for a desktop focused distro to join a server focused organization.
The biggest missconception about UL is that it is some Borg like entity that once you join you must fall in line with. This is just not the case. Each participating member can do whatever they like outside the UL organization. SuSE has stated quite clearly that they will continue to offer a desktop version. This version will (probably) not have the UnitedLinux tag on it, but then for a desktop, who cares? What UL offers is the ability to have your OS certified on enterprise hardware without being lucky enough to have the "defacto Linux standard" in your title (that's RedHat incase you missed it). With that in mind, there's no reason Mandrake could't join UL and realse a UL version, fully certified on all major hardware, with the added value of it's GUI tools, etc. Then Mandrake could continue to sell their deskop/server versions that would appeal to a broader, more price sensitive, customer base.
The second biggest missconception about UL is that it limits competition. This is just the opposite of the truth. To date there is only One distro that enjoys certification across all major hardware line, RedHat. Now, either RedHat has been unwilling or unable to convince it's hardware partners to certify agains all Linux distro's or, say, a Kernel/libs version of Linux. Sure, their are hundres of distro's out there, but only one certified for your enterprise needs, nice if your RedHat. With UnitedLinux there will not be two distros certified on all major hardwere, but five. And, because of the open (gasp) whey UnitedLinux was founded that could grow into as many distro's who care to achieve that level of certification. So, while UL does nothing to prevent a distro from producing whatever they like (thus not hurting competition), they provide the avenue through wich all distro's, not just RedHat, can achieve hardware certifications and compete in the enterprise market.
UnitedLinux is not a bad thing. It is focused on what it wants to do, but ultimately it does what RedHat never cared to, bring the rest of Linux along into the enterprise space. . . if they want to come.
Opus
What do SuSE, Caldera, Conectiva, and TurboLinux have in common? Simple; those four distros are practically the only ones that continue to try to make a profit, and consistently fail. RedHat is profitable, and Mandrake is getting closer every day; Debian, Gentoo, and myriad others are noncommercial distros that have no profit incentive. But SuSE, Caldera, Conectiva, and TurboLinux all want to be the next RedHat, and outside of very small markets, they all failed.
SuSE is RedHat's biggest competitor in Europe, and has the greatest marketshare in Germany. Caldera was formerly RedHat's biggest competitor in the US (until Mandrake came along). Conectiva is RedHat's biggest competitor in Latin America. TurboLinux is RedHat's biggest competitor in Japan.
So, these four distros realized that in every market, there was generally three corporate competitors: RedHat, Mandrake, and one of them. They decided to merge, so that there would be a common distro with worldwide marketshare; but kept the companies separate, so that they could leverage their brand in each market - would Latin Americans suddenly buy a copy of SuSE? As it is, they might fully merge someday, if/when the UnitedLinux brand becomes stronger.
Mandrake knew that they were a strong competitor throughout a very large geographical area; as they said in this statement, their worldwide marketshare is larger than the four UnitedLinux companies combined. Mandrake would have nothing to gain if they had to pool their resources with four companies who are much weaker then they are, and declining all the time.
I wouldn't be surprised if UnitedLinux ends up in a full corporate merger, and later the whole thing goes bankrupt; after reading Mandrake's statement, I get the feeling that they wouldn't be either.