Slashdot Mirror
Time for a Linux Consolidation?
An anonymous reader writes "Are there too many Linux distributions currently available? Can there be too many? This article explores the effect of the large number of distros out right now and suggests that progress could possibly be made through a consolidation. The article is more focused on Linux on the desktop but the ideas presented would impact the entire community, especially as it is seen as a rival to Windows." From the article: "One of the less widely recognized reasons why Linux has not yet toppled Windows, despite it many advantages, is how divided the resources available to Linux are. With dozen of different distributions the Linux community is so diffuse that the power or significance of any specific entity is severally limited."
I am a windows apologist - look at my history and you will see I entirely willing to point out the failings of Linux to the Zealots as the next guy.
But even I can see that the diversity of Linux is one of its strengths, as well as its weakness right now. Thanks to the sheer variety of work done in exploring slightly different approaches to the same task, we get to experiment with a multitude of approaches and ideas.
While that may not be a truly better product now, it can only lead to an excellent one in the future.
I am in no hurry for Linux to take over - I am not even sure that the operating system that does take over will be called Linux. Windows will have to sink a lot lower before its abandoned by the masses.
I am entirely certain that the work done in Linux over the past 10 years will shape the next generation operating system that finally does defeat windows though.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
More FUD of the "Eine Reich, Eine Volk, Eine Fuhrer!" variety.
I'd like to think I'm only going to have to explain this once (yeah, right) so here goes my attempt to explain a few things to the Windows using world.
1. Windows sucks. NT is probably the single most technologically inferior operating system to have ever seen the light of day. In terms of usability, on the surface it might seem great, but go even a few microns below the surface and it is revealed as an absolute dog. (Keep this point in mind, kids, cos it's a very important one)
2. Microsoft have taught the computer using world to think in a number of perverted, unnatural, and generally harmful ways. One of these ways is the insistence that one size has to fit all, i.e., the concept of a monoculture. There can't be more than one operating system in existence at any one time, goes the old saw. Unfortunately what Microsoft doesn't understand (aside from virtually everything else, that is) is that diversity is actually good for computer security, rather than bad for it. If different people run different operating systems, or even different versions of a similar or same operating system, it means that the anarchic 14 year olds wanting to break into said computers will have to work harder...because they will need to write versions of a given virus for a greater number of operating systems than just one. We could even hope that faced with that much effort, they won't bother.
3. Another one of these bad ways of thinking is the insistence that every GUI on the planet be identical to Windows'. You'll normally never hear me praising Apple (takes deep breath, wonders if he can really do this) but they also came up with some great ideas for user interface design, as well. The people currently designing KDE for Linux have even managed to come up with a few.
4. Yet another of Microsoft's evil ideas is the concept that programs should be designed monolithically. This actually follows on from the "Eine Reich, Eine Volk, Eine Fuhrer!" groupthink mentioned earlier. The Linux way of doing things on the other hand tends towards making various pieces which snap together, so that whoever works on a piece only has to worry about the bugs in said piece, rather than the entire program. Because the pieces are often fairly small, they're also usually a lot easier to understand than the sort of software Microsoft writes, and it's therefore easier to figure out how they work.
5. So from these few examples, we can see how Microsoft's ideology is bad. Therefore, I humbly beg you to kindly cease and desist authoring screeds about how Linux should supposedly be more like Microsoft's monstrosities...because it really shouldn't. Microsoft should be taking pages from Linux's book, not the other way around...for many different reasons.
You're right, of course, but the editors won't listen to you.
The reason for that is simple: unlike you and me, the editors don't care for Slashdot as a community site; or at least, it's not their top priority. What they *do* care about is their bottom line - i.e., advertising revenue. In order to maximize revenue, they need to have a certain amount of stories each day, and the stories need to be sufficiently interesting. The best story, from an editor's perspective, is one that generates lots of attention and makes people come back the next day to read more.
Sadly enough, troll stories do fit this bill quite perfectly - they're simply exploiting human nature and its hunger for sensations. Ever wonder why there are so many tabloid newspapers and why they're read by so many people? It's the same thing.
Of course, Slashdot has a reputation as being a news source for people who're more intelligent and more interested in technical issues than the average Joe Sixpack from the street - but it's still the same fundamental mechanism.
You can't really change anything about it, either - you could stop reading Slashdot, of course, but chances are that due to the sheer number of users, it wouldn't be noticed. There are alternatives, of course, that you could turn to, but they, too, suffer from the same problem. Kuro5hin, for example, caters to a specific audience just as much as Slashdot does, and uses the same tricks - somebody reading Kuro5hin might condemn Slashdot for what they do, but will probably fail to realize that the same thing is happening on K5, too. Ultimately, all news sources find their target audience and cater to that - if you like it, good, if you don't, not good, but it's not gonna change.
Incidentally, this is why we get dupes so often, too - contrary to popular belief, editors *are* aware that they're posting dupes, but they need good stories, and if something garners a lot of attention the first time it's posted, then it'll likely be posted again. And of course, if an editor still feels uneasy about it, they can always rationalize it away by pointing out the fact that people from different time zones might have missed the original story and so on.
But yeah, that's Slashdot. Love it or hate it, but you're not gonna fundamentally change it; and personally, I can live with daily dupes and troll articles as long as *most* articles are good, at least.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Linux could definitely benefit from *some* consolidation.
Every distro out there is an experiment in what works and what doesn't. The variety also makes Linux a difficult target for malware. That's why I don't support the LSB. If some people have a great enough itch to roll another distro, I say go for it. Look at it as insurance against inbreeding and the brain-damaged OS that could be the result - I'm not mentioning any names.