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New Linux Distribution — Exherbo, Announced
An anonymous reader writes "Former Gentoo developer Bryan Østergaard recently announced a new linux distribution aptly named Exherbo. The distribution, which has been underway for a couple of months and is based on ideas and experiences from his long work with Gentoo, features a new packaging format and several subprojects, such as a redesigned init system. Currently no installation medium is available but their package tree is public for the daring ones who want to play with the upcoming distribution. The developers strongly discourage any serious use though, as it's still highly experimental."
"aptly named Exherbo" I've read both FAs and I can't see why. Am I missing something obvious?
It's not that we hate you (unless we do). It's just that we have nothing to offer you, and you have nothing to offer us. They don't have a finished product. They don't even have a product yet. There is nothing to see, and they say it as well. Post this on slashdot when there is something to see. Then they will be happy about the traffic and the press, but now it's just a link to a page that says that maybe, one day, there will be yet another linux distro that wants to make everything better and nicer than the current Big Players(tm).
It's really a shame for F/OSS that, time and time again, there is such a huge duplication of effort and half-assed half-finished projects lying around in the junkyard of the Open Source cemetery.
And once again someone falls prey to a common misconception: F/OSS is not a monolith. If these guys didn't have the option of having their own sandbox to play in then what makes you think they'd be compelled to play in someone else's? The way this will more than likely shakeout is that fifty or so people will use this for awhile. Maybe it'll be a bit more popular if the primary devs have more stature than I'm giving them credit for.
These guys will get to have their fun and most everybody else will use an established distro. And that isn't to say good won't come of it. If they have good ideas, the bigger distros might adopt them. If they have REALLY good ideas they may supplant Gentoo among that crowd of people. Bugfixes may also go to upstream projects.
I know this is weird idea to someone accustomed to being served what they think they want from proprietary software houses but this is nothing but an exercise of freedom. Others are free to use what they make or not. What would you propose? Some sort of law saying that henceforth no one may attempt to start a BSD or Linux distribution?
The F/OSS world operates on a form of street-cred. These guys will either get it or not. It won't cause any sort of actual problem either way.
It doesn't even sound like a distro yet. It sounds like someone got their ego dented and posted a list of things they would want to change about Gentoo, but hasn't gotten much beyond the "writing a list" stage.
I predict this distro will quietly die as the developers get sick of reinventing the wheel. At best, it will be a very small niche distro.
No. You're getting modded up due to the "there are too many Linux distros" groupthink (that you're completely participating in).
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Don't forget "redesigned init system," for those times when you want an init replacement besides launchd, eINIT, initng, upstart, and Sun's SMF.
The guy wants to experiment with a new init system and a new packaging system. He's put this out as a "distro" so that anyone else who wants to can help out, make suggestions, whatever.
His work might end up "half-assed half-finished", or it might get incorporated into something larger which changes the way all the current big name distros work. If we are truly championing OSS, we should rather wish this guy well. He's doing exactly what everyone is always talking about, changing the source to suit himself and trying to learn how it is all put together.
You might have get a few more polished products that way but you would get anything other then unimaginative copies of other software and obvious evolutionary improvements on it. FOSS already has this problem in spades. Why? because most people are volunteers to be happy they need to feel like they have some sort of input. The result is everything is design by committee and therefore "safe" choices are the only ones that ever get made. This is not a bad thing for a mature project but its not good for young ones working in spaces that offer real chance for innovation.
The "managed" pure source based distribution is not a solved problem yet. Projects like this are good not because many people will use it, but because they won't. These guys get to go off and do there own thing which will be more likely to make them happy and productive then anything else. They won't really piss off any of the other people working on the Gentoo project because they are not directly working with them any more, and end users won't be subject to their untested whims. Mean while people will be watching. If, and it is a big if I admit, they put something things together that really work then the parent project will be free the cherry pick their good ideas and roll them back in. If they decide to use enough of them these guys may volunteer to rejoin the project as maintainers of their contributions.
This fork and merge pattern is really the place where FOSS does produce innovative new ideas. Its the people who think like you that case all the YetAnotherXXXXX FOSS projects.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
So is this place news for nerds, or just for whiners?
This is precisely the kind of news that belongs on Slashdot. Not a crosspost from the beeb or sci-am promoted to the front page solely to produce ad impressions for OSTG. Sorry if it's not cute and fluffy enough for you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"