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Too Many Linux Distros Make For Open Source Mess

Posted by samzenpus on from the 300-flavors dept.

AlexGr writes "Remember the 1980s worries about how the "forking" of Unix could hurt that operating system's chances for adoption? That was nothing compared to the mess we've got today with Linux, where upwards of 300 distributions vie for the attention of computer users seeking an alternative to Windows."

3 of 554 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot Feeds the Troll by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Slashdot is feeding a troll who just wants links from Slashdot back to his blog. There is essentially no content in his post except to comment that there are hundreds of Linux distributions. He doesn't make any reasonable case that this actually does harm. It's also not news. There have been that many Linux distributions for a long time. But tonight's troll, who wants to draw traffic to his Information Week blog, got on the Slashdot front page tonight because he knows that baiting us is the way to do it.

    Forking of software development projects has interesting consequences,sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes neither. Having more than onedistribution... I'm not sure that "forking" is even the right word toapply to that.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  2. Good point. Also with Windows by Flying+pig · · Score: 4, Interesting
    most Linux distros are just the equivalent of the different versions of Windows you get on OEM machines. End user versions like many from Dell include loads of crapware and bloatware - sorry, antivirus programs-, or bundled MS Works. Corporates often come with added management controls and built in Office. Small business machines from Acer come with hidden partition restores and management consoles. Many notebooks some with such specialised Windows versions that the only way to fix a broken system is a complete restore because of all the custom drivers. In reality, the range of Windows distribution versions is probably many times greater than the range of Linux distros.

    The car analogy is a good one too. There are now far fewer platforms than there are models, e.g. in Europe VW has the Polo, Golf, A4, A5 and A6 platforms that are used by a wide range of models spread over several brand names (SEAT, Skoda, AUDI, VW). Ubuntu can be seen as using exactly the same approach, with Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Ubuntu as brands but based on a small number of real platform variants. You can argue that the Linux world is actually more visibly attuned to the consumer market, while Windows is more like Communism - the State of Gates decides what the factories will make, and the end users put up with what they are given.

    --
    Pining for the fjords
  3. Re:Hrm... by spike1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Simple.
    They fill a need in function.
    How many distributions are there once you've discounted the ones that are EXTREMELY FOCUSSED?
    Lose the rescue distros. The distros designed to run from a single floppy, the distros designed to have a single function such as firewall-on-a-floppy types.

    Once you've edited the list down to lose all those you get down to a reasonable number.

    The 300 distros is too much argument is as brain dead now as it was 5 years ago.
    A spouting of wintrolls. "Linux has too much choice, how can people know which distro to use when there're so many, blah blah blah". But when more than half of the ones out there are of the type described above, and a third or more of the rest are live cd variations, the actual "desktop linux" and "server linux" focussed distros probably only add up to about 50.

    And only 6 of those will be picked by "newbies" anyway.