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Which Desktop Distro Will Die First?
Over at NewsForge, Roblimo asks the musical question of which of the several recently released "desktop oriented" Linux distributions won't survive the coming year. It's nice to see user-centric distributions at all, but it really is a niche market for now. Apropos that,
psykocrime writes "The fine folks at UnitedLinux have issued a Press Release announcing UnitedLinux 1.0.
Should be interesting to see whether this sinks or swims, considering the general ambivalence (at best) or even outright hostility (at worst) that most of the talk about United Linux has met, from the Linux community.
Questions about GPL compliance, per-set licensing terms, etc... is this the future or Linux or just another albatross?" And J. J. Ramsey writes "BeyondUnreal reviews not only Xandros Desktop's installation, but also shows what this distro's $99 price tag actually gets you. Read more here. LinuxPlanet also has an in-depth review of its own."
1. Bad marketing plans redolent of dot-bombs.
2. Onerous licensing not in keeping with Linux's mission.
3. Just plain bad distros.
4. Unprofessional behavior.
The latter will kill a company that deals in Linux very quickly, I've found, since the Linux community is very aware of a company's behavior, far more so than most other communities. If company X with distro Y is seen as "in bed with the enemy," they're going to get shunned faster than a sweet potato that's been up Rush Limbaugh's butt for safekeeping during the winter.
Maybe this is why small companies like Slackware are still around: they cater to a specific need, they do it well, and they don't try to shoot themselves in the foot with pretentious We Need To Grow Our Business jargon/corporate newspeak.
I think you swapped around all of the distro descriptions. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to sort them out. :)
I figured I should make sense of this post before some newbie actually believed it If you are new to linux and want a clean desktop to get you started select one of the following: 1) Redhat 8.0 2) Mandrake 9.whatever 3) Suse (what number are they to?) If you are a bit more seasoned and want to play a bit more try these: 1) Redhat 8.0 2) Debian If you are a wizard and want real control: 1) Redhat 8.0 2) Slackware 3) Gentoo These are all my opinion...disagree if you like, but I am right in my little world :)
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Completely free distros do not disappear, but those that require pay-per-seat because they have proprietary components are at much greater risk of disappearing. If the company loses interest, the distro goes away, as distributing it without their permission is not legal.
This is one of the things that puts Lindows at risk.
They already did and lost so far, what more as a result the name Windows as a trademark for MS' OS might not be protected. Lindows might be doing us all a favor.
Help fight continental drift.
One of my friends bought a Wal-mart PC with Lindos pre-installed and it was awful.
From both the perspective of a linux user and a windows user. It failed at everything. It was tough to use, the menus were cluttered with software you didn't have but you could pay for. It was slow, it couldn't run windows programs the way it advertised.
I can't believe wal-mart would have agreed to let them ship it on their systems.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Where is the page to order and download a $5 version in order to pay their bandwidth and server upkeep costs? I don't see it. Where is the page to order just the CDs for $10/$15? I don't see it.
The GPL doesn't require them to provide it. They're perfectly fine under the GPL only selling it for $299.
What they can't do is stop you from giving away (or selling for $5) the copy you bought from them for $299. The GPL doesn't say anything about you having to give away your software, or about charging only what it costs to physically transfer the copy. It just says that you cannot then place any restrictions on further distribution of that GPLed software.
-Rob
Here in Europe, the picture is reversed. Germany, the country with the highest Linux use per capita in the world (netcraft et al) is mainly SuSE country, this mainly because SuSE is the first distro that people there hear about and because SuSE is German and has, surprise, better German documentation. (Not that I like SuSE though, my own experiences with them and their distro have been very bad). Mandrake also has a higher density in France than elsewhere, and has, surprise, good help in French. The localisation of these distros is what gives them their strength. Internationally though, RedHat has the best chances of success. Debian remains the friendliest non-commercial distro, once it's installed, with apt-get being the real choice item in the distro.
My prediction: Linux should devise a method of device support that lives outside the kernal and can be changed on the fly without rebooting.
You are right and I am wrong.
Not only does the fsf gpl faq address this, but section 3 of the GPL makes it clear.
You must either
- Include source code
- Accompany with written offer to ANY third party
- Accompany with written offer received from someone else -- but this option available only if YOU are a NON-commercial distributor, and yourself received the second option above.
It's the ANY third party that I was hung up over. So yes, Lindows, must either include source on the CD's or include downloadable source to anyone, not just their customers.Of course, they don't have to make it easy to find.
This written offer good for anyone who visits our web site between 2:00 and 3:00 AM CST on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!