And where is Debian in this list? Are you really telling me no-one buys Debian CDs? Now if someone could come up with the figures for OS downloads AND sales from ALL sources (i.e. cheapbytes aswell as PC World) then it might get interesting.
And look, they're so sad they have to ensure they publicise their coming works in alphabetical order. Politics and Money do not a musical classic make!
Yep a paper trail would be good but how about you ensure that it is also uncorruptable! I think it should be more like a machine where to the on the top of the monitor is a "window" into a "till roll" where a printer logs your vote and your acceptance of the vote (i.e. you must say "Yes the paper is correct" or "No it has not printed what I wanted. Let me vote again."). The paper is never in the voters hands and should be pristine if it is ever examined. Then network it up so it can feed the printer spool to another machine or few which in turn form a network of integrity (running back to the paper, but should the machine be burnt out results can be used). Add a scanner to the devices so that it can check itself and then there would be no excuse for cracking more than a few samples open every election. Finally you could add a video camera to record the votes, and maybe even do voice and face recognition (eyeball, fingerprint... choose your hardware) learning each vote to reduce to near nil the odds of voter fraud. Your way you just end up with hand counts of pieces of paper... always riskier and more labour intensive! My way you end up with a few security guards and a couple of "clerks".
Did you forget this is/. News for Nerds when ou suggested handing pieces of paper around?
Well considering the number of movie productions which are already using Linux I think we are already in a position of power (as I say a $100,000+ bill to license Windows for a cluster would make them think twice) and also I was implying that the BSDs would also join the embargo so they would be left with the choice of Win/Sol/Irix all of which would be far more expensive for a cluster of commodity hardware.
You miss the point! It is not about the legality or illegality of the software, it is about whether or not we "allow" them to use the software (say Linux, Bind, sendmail, XFree86, apache which are all very legal AFAIK). The fact they might still have issue with some software that they are also not "allowed" use (e.g. ac3dec) is seperate to the licencing but the reason for it. Bottom line the post is a joke but one we should all remember for when we next meet a MPAA/RIAA/Dolby etc. bean pusher. What we would be asking them to do is to ignore the patent/copyright/whatever issue in return for us "letting" them use our software:-)
Well if you read my response to the other response to my response:-) Really it is a joke, but so are software patents! It mightn't be a stupid idea to throw these stupid threats around a bit more though to show that we are NOT MAD ZEALOTS and to point out to some bean counters that we help them so why don't they stop hindering us!
I can't really see the whole of Debian moving to non-free no matter how insidious things become, but we gotta make sure they realise that this is not because we are in a position of weakness, it is because we are honorable. Let's make them admit their a pack of assh*les.
When I said the stick to beat them with I really meant that we should put the threat on the table as how the game could be played. If we are talking to anyone with a millionth of a brain they will know that this is entirely contrary to "our" principles, however same said people will also realise that they are hypocritical to make billions per annum off the back of Free software while denying it's application for harmless purposes. The people making the decisions at present on the software they use are not the people who decide to tell FreeBSD to stop linking to ac3dec (to take a recent example). We need to ensure that the people who want to take advantage of our software start kicking the sh*t out of the bean pushers and managers who want to screw us back.
Recently someone suggested altering the licensing on a lot of Free/free/open software to preclude the MPAA, RIAA, MS et al from using the software for any reason. Perhaps this is the stick we need to beat the DVD rap with
Pixar Exec "What does this licensce mean then?"
GNU/OS Author "You can use it when I like you again, and until then Bollywood is going to kick your ass:-)"
SGI probably feels a lot better than fine considering they have been working and porting on Linux for years. What is the alternative, watch everyone move to Windows (I can see them forking out $200,000 for Win 200 licences for their 1024 PC render farm). SGI stated a long time ago that they liked Linux and that they were going to work with it. I think SGI and IBM are in competition here alright, but never forget that while IBM will provide lots of hardware, SGI has the high-end software expertise that Hollywood needs so they will be secure for a long while to come. I imagine you could see design houses with SGI workstations, IBM fileservers and a large cluster of commodity machines to do the dog work. This is roughly what happened (can't remember who provided the fileservers though) for Final Fantasy. IBM and SGI are targeting slightly different markets here still and I am fairly confident they will work extremely hard to ensure cross-compatability (where feasible) because they both want this market and would much rather share with each other than see themselves swamped if MS ever got a foothold.
One little server on a little 128k leased line and the attack pattern since 1st August reads
13,35,24,27,27,63,73,47,32 (in 15 hours)
Until the 4th August all the attacks were from the initial breed (NNNNNN). On the 4th 3 of the 27 attacks were from the new breed (XXXXXX). On the 5th 15 NNNNN and 12 XXXXX. Day 6 and only 10 of the old breed arrive while 63 of the new breed are in and since then we are down to about 3 attacks of the old NNNNN per day.
I actually agree with the concept setting up a lot of machines to reply to the virus with the fix. It seems obvious that too many NT/2000 boxes out there are abandoned and vulnerable thanks to the lack of knowledge required to expose one. Who thinks that we won't see any attacks next month?
Well here in Ireland we will be having an election in the next year or so... guess what the canvassers to my house will be asked about... software patents, reverse engineering, government expenditure on proprietary software (including training), fair use and internet censorship/monitoring. I am sure not one will be able to convince me they have a clue but it will be fun to see them try!
It is no surprise to hear that people are watching less ads when they have a PVR, but we must ensure that we can continue to provide a Free way to create a PVR from commodity traffic. The question is why is their not yet a tivo type service for every tv station on the planet (like Ireland please, I could grey import a tivo now but what would be the point?). We need to release a Free package that can control a video capture device by using a db of your interests/program choices and an online db of all the tv stations available to you. I started to gather the resources to do Irish TV, can anyone point me to any projects that might like my help?
To think that the console battle has even begun is a delusion! Now we have Sony, Nintendo, Sega and MS. MS will probably find that by the time the XBox is starting to have the sort of titles required to get taken seriously, Sony will have a PS^3 which runs Linux (hey maybe they'll change to Be or QNX or XP hehe) and still runs PS2 games (if not PS1). The Gamers market is going to be a LOT harder for them to get into, too many of it's market will be thinking "I'm not having my console BSOD".
I remeber NT 3.5.... it didn't get far! NT4 (Chicago) was meant to solve all this by bringing all the dos users up to the NT codebse... it failed and NT gained a server role for MS but not spectacular numbers (think NT V 9x boxes). Me... I don't know a single person who runs it (though I know many who ditched it). Win 9x is everywhere... the latest efforts are getting a very very slow rollout! Of and the 2000 you never montioned, it's struggling to replace NT on servers and is still being left on the shelf for the 9x (or maybe Me) line on the Desktop. MS are successful and sell a lot of products, but their performance is really becoming a lot less spectacular (hence subscriptions are coming).
Bottom line, MS are NOT what they were! They have fragmented their userbase (not fatally, but it is weakening their position). MS's business model is in ensuring that PCs come with Windows and that people buy the upgrades they release until they replace the PC with a new Windows PC. People are staying behind and not upgrading (ignoring the people who do upgrade...illegally). Add to this their attempts to take dangerous decisions (XBox, XP,.NET) and the legal threats on both sides of the Atlantic... 5,4,3 years ago MS were awsome, Since then the chinks in the armour have started opening up.
My bluetooth SETI@HOME comment was really about the problem of data gathering. If people can buy a bluetooth weather station module and put it on their roof/in their garden/in the house we could see a huge increase in sampling. Yes we still need more sampling at higher levels, but it is about evolving greater sample spaces to match our increasing processing power. As a further response suggests we could make radical advances in the future with nanoprobe technology (resistence is futile). Either way I still believe the current "boundary" of predictability will be broken in my lifetime.
You are a quiter! Simple as that! I fully expect to see major advances in weather prediction techniques in my life time (I suspect I have 25-100 years to go:-). Take Moores Law, the internet and human wisdom... I have hope. Perhaps they will make a Bletooth devices that lets you contribute to the new SETI@HOME and monitor your local weather. Perhaps the Newtonian-Motzart of the digital age will come up with something way out there that leaps us forward. Chaos theory exists, however where is the threshold of understandability? Can we understand the system well enough to know where it is? Are we sure nothing will make a difference?
Just stall them to Jan 2nd 2002,/. can post a reminder and all us Eurpoeans will send them one of our brand new 1 cent pieces. They ain't going to accept pennies from the US, UK, Ireland etc. but they gotta accept Euros. So what do we need again? 200,000 readers at 1c.... hmmmmm this isn't into the hof yet so I guess we better come up with another idea:-(
Not to beat this into the ground, but all a project has to do is insure that it's "owners" have nothing worth suing for, cause when the law is this stupid you gotta hold it in contempt!
Why I asked for a name is because Illustrator is an extremely obvious and descriptive name for the product! Windows on the other hand is not so obvious (yes we call them windows, but are they?) so it is feasable to protect from another gui OS or window manager calling itself Windows. Could I release a word processor called writer and try to stop anyone else using the name (originality issues not withstanding)?
If "Adobe Illustrator" did not exist I do believe that the KDE guys could still have called the ap KIllustrator! Propose some other names for me.... KDrawer has Corel unhappy and doesn't read as well. KSketcher doesn't read well and sounds more amateurish. KPaint... well it's not a paint program. Need I continue? Is their a more obvious name that should have been used which means the same and doesn't conflict with a commercial Ap? Now if they had called it KDE Illustrator... perhaps I would allow an argument but as all companies seem to like to insist that their product is called "Adobe Illustrator" and NOT "Illustrator" so as to ensure higher brand awareness I think they should be told to FO when they claim that "Corel Illustrator" is conflicting. Without the company name qualifier Illustrator is an English word used normally to describe the programs action, if they wanted to have a protectable name they should have called it "A.V.I.C.T." for adobe vector illustration computer tool and then KDE would never have released KAVICT or even KVICT. Adobe are just trying to bully their way out of a stupid decision, I hope someone can give the KDE guys some good Legal advice and that they can tell Adobe to FO.
You can't have it all! 3D software is doing better in getting ported to Linux than nearly any other commercial sector. Maya, Houdini and Performer are all across to start with. I guess you are looking for 3DSMax, Softimage and Lightwave, but if I remember correctly Softimage and Lightwave are both coming! Just because your favourite app hasn't been ported to your favourite OS does not mean you can knock the OS! I would guess graphics professionals from an SGI platform would make the exact same comments about having to keep their Indy/Onyx/Reality Station around if they are trying to change to any other platform. Video Editing software on the other hand... it would be nice to see anyone porting over to Linux.
Back in August 2000 pcplus(I never look at the site but it is refusing me now) Awarded a Best Performer award to this exact product in it's October 2000 Issue (so the review could have been done as early as June...thats 1 Year ago!). The basic summary:
Good data transfer
Only one fan and ethernet
About half of the review deals with the software setup and the slackware choice with no complaints other than "butchering the WebMin interface". It even compliments a good, tuned manual.
The rest of the review probably has more interesting facts for the/. crowd. The main points of interest were that the hard disk (centrally mounted secured to the base) remained comfortable temperature wise during testing though they were worried about it. The expelled air temperature gave little cause for concern but they didn't like relying on one fan. The machine came with 128Mb and the maximum was 256Mb. There is an internal picture of the machine and it looks quite neat and tidy, but you can't really see the guts of the machine.
I don't think this is the machine for putting 48 machines in 12U, I think (and so did PCPlus) it's for the people who need a basic server but don't want to take up a load of space. Maybe you might buy a second, third or fourth but then.... you will be best served elsewhere.
It's very simple, if you want a system like that you can start your own project, use ANY current distribution of Free Software as your base (Debian, OpenBSD, RedHat) and try to find developers to help you make it work (or else impress us all).
Debian however is about creating stable environments which can be used anywhere but because it has an open development process, people can track stable, testing/frozen, unstable. The real interest of this story and why it deserves to be discussed on/. (apart from the managments penchant for it) is that this release of Debian is being handled by a new person with new ideas. The aim (as the link reiterates) is to bring down the release cycle time for Debian (with an ambition of a roughly 6 month cycle). We have seen the arrival of the testing distribution which is basically an automanaged version of Debian containing co-dependant sections which have been through some testing and need to be broken! We are now seeing a detailed breakdown of how this will start being frozen out into a release.
I think that aj deserves all the support in the world (and he'll be getting more and more of mine) as if he suceeds Debian could become a True Power. Debian is continually praised except for package ages and user ease. We have seen a number of Debian based distributions but each of these I feel was probably let down by the need to continually update the entire system as users could not accept an 18 month release cycle. The potential for commercial investment around Debian is huge, what company would not like to be able to base their products on the stablility of a stable Debian. If we have a 6 month Debian stable release cycle, I am certain we would see new-user Debian systems for many purposes (servers, desktops) aswell as embedded Debian and we would also see many of these bodies working actively in Debian itself to improve the base even more in each of those 6 months.
Debian best embodies the ethos of Free Software and it's development model is an example of how impressive open development is. How many people on/. would not move Linux production systems to Debian if it had a 6 month release cycle (without effecting stability)? If we want Linux to take power, we need to support Linux, but that is a hard task at present. When you are asked "which Linux should I try" you make one of the biggest impacts to Linux development you can (unless you actively participate in a project), the answer at present is far from easy. We should be able to say Debian and then you can decide if you need something else simply because Debian is openly developed and stable. Can anyone propose some alternative Linux distro we should support? If the philosophy of Free Software is held widely by it's knowledgable users then we should all be choosing our OS as a sign of support. aj is trying to help the world. How about we help aswell? I know I will!
Slashdot Mirror
And where is Debian in this list? Are you really telling me no-one buys Debian CDs? Now if someone could come up with the figures for OS downloads AND sales from ALL sources (i.e. cheapbytes aswell as PC World) then it might get interesting.
And look, they're so sad they have to ensure they publicise their coming works in alphabetical order. Politics and Money do not a musical classic make!
Yep a paper trail would be good but how about you ensure that it is also uncorruptable! I think it should be more like a machine where to the on the top of the monitor is a "window" into a "till roll" where a printer logs your vote and your acceptance of the vote (i.e. you must say "Yes the paper is correct" or "No it has not printed what I wanted. Let me vote again."). The paper is never in the voters hands and should be pristine if it is ever examined. Then network it up so it can feed the printer spool to another machine or few which in turn form a network of integrity (running back to the paper, but should the machine be burnt out results can be used). Add a scanner to the devices so that it can check itself and then there would be no excuse for cracking more than a few samples open every election. Finally you could add a video camera to record the votes, and maybe even do voice and face recognition (eyeball, fingerprint ... choose your hardware) learning each vote to reduce to near nil the odds of voter fraud. Your way you just end up with hand counts of pieces of paper ... always riskier and more labour intensive! My way you end up with a few security guards and a couple of "clerks".
Did you forget this is /. News for Nerds when ou suggested handing pieces of paper around?
Well considering the number of movie productions which are already using Linux I think we are already in a position of power (as I say a $100,000+ bill to license Windows for a cluster would make them think twice) and also I was implying that the BSDs would also join the embargo so they would be left with the choice of Win/Sol/Irix all of which would be far more expensive for a cluster of commodity hardware.
You miss the point! It is not about the legality or illegality of the software, it is about whether or not we "allow" them to use the software (say Linux, Bind, sendmail, XFree86, apache which are all very legal AFAIK). The fact they might still have issue with some software that they are also not "allowed" use (e.g. ac3dec) is seperate to the licencing but the reason for it. Bottom line the post is a joke but one we should all remember for when we next meet a MPAA/RIAA/Dolby etc. bean pusher. What we would be asking them to do is to ignore the patent/copyright/whatever issue in return for us "letting" them use our software :-)
Well if you read my response to the other response to my response :-) Really it is a joke, but so are software patents! It mightn't be a stupid idea to throw these stupid threats around a bit more though to show that we are NOT MAD ZEALOTS and to point out to some bean counters that we help them so why don't they stop hindering us!
I can't really see the whole of Debian moving to non-free no matter how insidious things become, but we gotta make sure they realise that this is not because we are in a position of weakness, it is because we are honorable. Let's make them admit their a pack of assh*les.
When I said the stick to beat them with I really meant that we should put the threat on the table as how the game could be played. If we are talking to anyone with a millionth of a brain they will know that this is entirely contrary to "our" principles, however same said people will also realise that they are hypocritical to make billions per annum off the back of Free software while denying it's application for harmless purposes. The people making the decisions at present on the software they use are not the people who decide to tell FreeBSD to stop linking to ac3dec (to take a recent example). We need to ensure that the people who want to take advantage of our software start kicking the sh*t out of the bean pushers and managers who want to screw us back.
Recently someone suggested altering the licensing on a lot of Free/free/open software to preclude the MPAA, RIAA, MS et al from using the software for any reason. Perhaps this is the stick we need to beat the DVD rap with
:-)"
Pixar Exec "What does this licensce mean then?"
GNU/OS Author "You can use it when I like you again, and until then Bollywood is going to kick your ass
SGI probably feels a lot better than fine considering they have been working and porting on Linux for years. What is the alternative, watch everyone move to Windows (I can see them forking out $200,000 for Win 200 licences for their 1024 PC render farm). SGI stated a long time ago that they liked Linux and that they were going to work with it. I think SGI and IBM are in competition here alright, but never forget that while IBM will provide lots of hardware, SGI has the high-end software expertise that Hollywood needs so they will be secure for a long while to come. I imagine you could see design houses with SGI workstations, IBM fileservers and a large cluster of commodity machines to do the dog work. This is roughly what happened (can't remember who provided the fileservers though) for Final Fantasy. IBM and SGI are targeting slightly different markets here still and I am fairly confident they will work extremely hard to ensure cross-compatability (where feasible) because they both want this market and would much rather share with each other than see themselves swamped if MS ever got a foothold.
One little server on a little 128k leased line and the attack pattern since 1st August reads
13,35,24,27,27,63,73,47,32 (in 15 hours)
Until the 4th August all the attacks were from the initial breed (NNNNNN). On the 4th 3 of the 27 attacks were from the new breed (XXXXXX). On the 5th 15 NNNNN and 12 XXXXX. Day 6 and only 10 of the old breed arrive while 63 of the new breed are in and since then we are down to about 3 attacks of the old NNNNN per day.
I actually agree with the concept setting up a lot of machines to reply to the virus with the fix. It seems obvious that too many NT/2000 boxes out there are abandoned and vulnerable thanks to the lack of knowledge required to expose one. Who thinks that we won't see any attacks next month?
Well here in Ireland we will be having an election in the next year or so ... guess what the canvassers to my house will be asked about ... software patents, reverse engineering, government expenditure on proprietary software (including training), fair use and internet censorship/monitoring. I am sure not one will be able to convince me they have a clue but it will be fun to see them try!
It is no surprise to hear that people are watching less ads when they have a PVR, but we must ensure that we can continue to provide a Free way to create a PVR from commodity traffic. The question is why is their not yet a tivo type service for every tv station on the planet (like Ireland please, I could grey import a tivo now but what would be the point?). We need to release a Free package that can control a video capture device by using a db of your interests/program choices and an online db of all the tv stations available to you. I started to gather the resources to do Irish TV, can anyone point me to any projects that might like my help?
My bad, was it Detroit?
- To think that the console battle has even begun is a delusion! Now we have Sony, Nintendo, Sega and MS. MS will probably find that by the time the XBox is starting to have the sort of titles required to get taken seriously, Sony will have a PS^3 which runs Linux (hey maybe they'll change to Be or QNX or XP hehe) and still runs PS2 games (if not PS1). The Gamers market is going to be a LOT harder for them to get into, too many of it's market will be thinking "I'm not having my console BSOD".
- I remeber NT 3.5
.... it didn't get far! NT4 (Chicago) was meant to solve all this by bringing all the dos users up to the NT codebse... it failed and NT gained a server role for MS but not spectacular numbers (think NT V 9x boxes). Me ... I don't know a single person who runs it (though I know many who ditched it). Win 9x is everywhere ... the latest efforts are getting a very very slow rollout! Of and the 2000 you never montioned, it's struggling to replace NT on servers and is still being left on the shelf for the 9x (or maybe Me) line on the Desktop. MS are successful and sell a lot of products, but their performance is really becoming a lot less spectacular (hence subscriptions are coming).
Bottom line, MS are NOT what they were! They have fragmented their userbase (not fatally, but it is weakening their position). MS's business model is in ensuring that PCs come with Windows and that people buy the upgrades they release until they replace the PC with a new Windows PC. People are staying behind and not upgrading (ignoring the people who do upgrade...illegally). Add to this their attempts to take dangerous decisions (XBox, XP,Only in America can the above statement be Funny :-(
My bluetooth SETI@HOME comment was really about the problem of data gathering. If people can buy a bluetooth weather station module and put it on their roof/in their garden/in the house we could see a huge increase in sampling. Yes we still need more sampling at higher levels, but it is about evolving greater sample spaces to match our increasing processing power. As a further response suggests we could make radical advances in the future with nanoprobe technology (resistence is futile). Either way I still believe the current "boundary" of predictability will be broken in my lifetime.
You are a quiter! Simple as that! I fully expect to see major advances in weather prediction techniques in my life time (I suspect I have 25-100 years to go :-). Take Moores Law, the internet and human wisdom ... I have hope. Perhaps they will make a Bletooth devices that lets you contribute to the new SETI@HOME and monitor your local weather. Perhaps the Newtonian-Motzart of the digital age will come up with something way out there that leaps us forward. Chaos theory exists, however where is the threshold of understandability? Can we understand the system well enough to know where it is? Are we sure nothing will make a difference?
Just stall them to Jan 2nd 2002, /. can post a reminder and all us Eurpoeans will send them one of our brand new 1 cent pieces. They ain't going to accept pennies from the US, UK, Ireland etc. but they gotta accept Euros. So what do we need again? 200,000 readers at 1c .... hmmmmm this isn't into the hof yet so I guess we better come up with another idea :-(
Not to beat this into the ground, but all a project has to do is insure that it's "owners" have nothing worth suing for, cause when the law is this stupid you gotta hold it in contempt!
Why I asked for a name is because Illustrator is an extremely obvious and descriptive name for the product! Windows on the other hand is not so obvious (yes we call them windows, but are they?) so it is feasable to protect from another gui OS or window manager calling itself Windows. Could I release a word processor called writer and try to stop anyone else using the name (originality issues not withstanding)?
If "Adobe Illustrator" did not exist I do believe that the KDE guys could still have called the ap KIllustrator! Propose some other names for me.... KDrawer has Corel unhappy and doesn't read as well. KSketcher doesn't read well and sounds more amateurish. KPaint ... well it's not a paint program. Need I continue? Is their a more obvious name that should have been used which means the same and doesn't conflict with a commercial Ap? Now if they had called it KDE Illustrator ... perhaps I would allow an argument but as all companies seem to like to insist that their product is called "Adobe Illustrator" and NOT "Illustrator" so as to ensure higher brand awareness I think they should be told to FO when they claim that "Corel Illustrator" is conflicting. Without the company name qualifier Illustrator is an English word used normally to describe the programs action, if they wanted to have a protectable name they should have called it "A.V.I.C.T." for adobe vector illustration computer tool and then KDE would never have released KAVICT or even KVICT. Adobe are just trying to bully their way out of a stupid decision, I hope someone can give the KDE guys some good Legal advice and that they can tell Adobe to FO.
You can't have it all! 3D software is doing better in getting ported to Linux than nearly any other commercial sector. Maya, Houdini and Performer are all across to start with. I guess you are looking for 3DSMax, Softimage and Lightwave, but if I remember correctly Softimage and Lightwave are both coming! Just because your favourite app hasn't been ported to your favourite OS does not mean you can knock the OS! I would guess graphics professionals from an SGI platform would make the exact same comments about having to keep their Indy/Onyx/Reality Station around if they are trying to change to any other platform. Video Editing software on the other hand ... it would be nice to see anyone porting over to Linux.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
http://pcplus.co.uk is the correct link. It is the link given on the cover of their magazine. I can't get into it now though :-(
Back in August 2000 pcplus(I never look at the site but it is refusing me now) Awarded a Best Performer award to this exact product in it's October 2000 Issue (so the review could have been done as early as June...thats 1 Year ago!). The basic summary:
- Good data transfer
- Only one fan and ethernet
About half of the review deals with the software setup and the slackware choice with no complaints other than "butchering the WebMin interface". It even compliments a good, tuned manual.The rest of the review probably has more interesting facts for the /. crowd. The main points of interest were that the hard disk (centrally mounted secured to the base) remained comfortable temperature wise during testing though they were worried about it. The expelled air temperature gave little cause for concern but they didn't like relying on one fan. The machine came with 128Mb and the maximum was 256Mb. There is an internal picture of the machine and it looks quite neat and tidy, but you can't really see the guts of the machine.
I don't think this is the machine for putting 48 machines in 12U, I think (and so did PCPlus) it's for the people who need a basic server but don't want to take up a load of space. Maybe you might buy a second, third or fourth but then.... you will be best served elsewhere.
It's very simple, if you want a system like that you can start your own project, use ANY current distribution of Free Software as your base (Debian, OpenBSD, RedHat) and try to find developers to help you make it work (or else impress us all).
Debian however is about creating stable environments which can be used anywhere but because it has an open development process, people can track stable, testing/frozen, unstable. The real interest of this story and why it deserves to be discussed on /. (apart from the managments penchant for it) is that this release of Debian is being handled by a new person with new ideas. The aim (as the link reiterates) is to bring down the release cycle time for Debian (with an ambition of a roughly 6 month cycle). We have seen the arrival of the testing distribution which is basically an automanaged version of Debian containing co-dependant sections which have been through some testing and need to be broken! We are now seeing a detailed breakdown of how this will start being frozen out into a release.
I think that aj deserves all the support in the world (and he'll be getting more and more of mine) as if he suceeds Debian could become a True Power. Debian is continually praised except for package ages and user ease. We have seen a number of Debian based distributions but each of these I feel was probably let down by the need to continually update the entire system as users could not accept an 18 month release cycle. The potential for commercial investment around Debian is huge, what company would not like to be able to base their products on the stablility of a stable Debian. If we have a 6 month Debian stable release cycle, I am certain we would see new-user Debian systems for many purposes (servers, desktops) aswell as embedded Debian and we would also see many of these bodies working actively in Debian itself to improve the base even more in each of those 6 months.
Debian best embodies the ethos of Free Software and it's development model is an example of how impressive open development is. How many people on /. would not move Linux production systems to Debian if it had a 6 month release cycle (without effecting stability)? If we want Linux to take power, we need to support Linux, but that is a hard task at present. When you are asked "which Linux should I try" you make one of the biggest impacts to Linux development you can (unless you actively participate in a project), the answer at present is far from easy. We should be able to say Debian and then you can decide if you need something else simply because Debian is openly developed and stable. Can anyone propose some alternative Linux distro we should support? If the philosophy of Free Software is held widely by it's knowledgable users then we should all be choosing our OS as a sign of support. aj is trying to help the world. How about we help aswell? I know I will!