That's security through obsurity, really, isn't it?
AES et. al. means that noone can eavesdrop on your conversation - It's encrypted form end to end. That means if your talk to your bank via https over an AES secured connection, your connection is secured to thier web server at layer 2, while your passwords etc. - session data - are encrypted at layer 4.
That way, if someone does somehow break into your converstaion, the session data is still protected.
AES secures the physical layer, the other systems secure the actual conversation.
I doubt they're your garden variety "OMG BillG iz teh debil" Loonix fanbois, friend.
They are a serious enterprise, and there must be a reason something as provocative as " not just because we hated Microsoft" would come out in an interview.
IOW - It's likley that Microsoft's products and/or policies have left a very, very bad impression with these people, and they're glad that they have a compeditor with which to smack Microsoft in the head with.
Are we phishing for passwords? Yes. Are we preying on the gullibility of millions of computer users? Yes. Are we using the information that we're receiving to access as much cash/credit from the end-users as is possible, probably ruinging their credit and their lives? Yes.
There it is.
No money means you don't go out. Not going out means you don't meet any people. Not meeting any people means you don't meet people of the opposite sex. Not meeting people of the opposite sex means you don't breed.
Ergo, these people are thinning the herd, darwinistically removing the gullible people who stupidly let terrorists into our fair lands.
If you count on Windows, you are at the mercy of Microsoft and thier business model. They will try to make you and your business so depandant on them that you can't go in any direction but that which they tell you - you become thier cash cow.
Concientiously deploying thier solutions, however, means that they become just another vendor - who you can turf at any time for something better, if and when it comes along.
Realising what amount of control you give a vendor ultimately keeps control of your business where it belongs - with you.
There are probably more than a few businesses that woke up to the fact that Microsoft had an inordinate amount of control over them when they introduced Licensing 6.0. Once it sunk in that Microsoft was actually capable of exacting an annual tribute from them (and actually willing to attempt this), the ultimate damage was done. IMHO, Microsoft's huberis is killing Windows, not the worms.
*goes back to finishing the deployment of 2 brand new Linux servers...
ESR has had a nasty habit of donning a tin-foil hat, jumping up and down and then ranting like an in-coherent zealot - to the detrement of OSS in the eyes of CxO types. "Look at how this loony, a OSS leader, responds - is this the type of person you want associated with your business?"
Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, ESR seems to be responding to the critisism of his past rants and couter-productive behaviour. This one, though perhaps self-serving at times, is measured and based on facts. AdTI's strategy of provoking a senseless flamewar with the OSS community is backfiring. If they had of made a more convincing argument, they may have gotten somewhere, but as it is, any of the/. trolls could have done better.
I beg to differ with your "Linux is a very difficult product to commoditize" statement. Linux is turning operating systems into a commodity - the tool is cheap, it's the expertise to use that particular tool that's pricey.
As with any tool, you have to take the good with the bad. Linux cannot choose sides - as this post points out, Linux is just software - it itself has no moral compass.
Too, which side of the equation you on seems to define the morality - if you're someone who made out like a bandit in the.com era and are now struggling, outsourcing is bad. If you're a poor farmer in India whose child just turned the educaion that you paid for with the sweat of your brow into a steady, paying job, outsourcing is good.
I've been affected by outsourcing myself - the job I held was "terminated" since the whole department was picked up and moved to a cheaper part of the country. Different story, same effect - I was out of a job for a year, and took a lower paying position to feed my family.
Anyone "talking up Linux" is good, IMHO - even my former employers. As you said, it's not Linux's fault. It's just market forces in action.
"On the plus side, Napster users at the school would be able to download as much music as they like for $3 per month - Windows users only, of course.
Of course! I mean, those iPod/Mac yuppies already have iTunes, and share music with those Communist Loonix weirdos? No way.
Sadly, the DRM restrictions with Napster run high. Users can only make 3 copies of a song before the files become unplayable. In addition, students must pay 99 cents per song to move the file from their computer onto a CD or music playing device.
3 copies? 99 cents to move a song across some copper wires? Well, until the DRM is cracked, anyway.
Students would also only be able to download songs while they are on the school network. Once they leave school their music disappears.
Suuuuure. (See above about the DRM)
Has renting culture ever been more fun?"
*sigh* That statement is sooo true. It's a shame that the Napster name is still attached to this. In it's heyday, Napster showed a hint what a free culture could be - this is just stupid. I can't see thier service surviving in the same market as iTunes, not to mention thier total reliance on DRM to force money out of people. DRM is like balloon - once it's breached, it disappears - forever.
Napster is a zombie - it's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet.
I can understand your (mostly WRONG) attitudes towards Canada, since you were actually raised in a different country.
That's the point though - Canada is a different country than the US - Canada is not USA-Lite. I don't mind the things you're railing against, since I've decided to accept them as the price of having my country the way it is - which is the country I love. If the poster is willing to accept that things will be different here, he'll come to love his new country, too.
BTW, try some of the establishments on St. Catherine street in Vieux Montréal - the ladies there will change your mind about Quebecers being unfriendly.;-)
Jorge "whipirush" Castro, of Ars Technica's Linux.ARS fame, has made a level headed, informative reply to this trol^Warticle on his blog. Here is the text of relevant entry, to try and save whiprush some bandwidth:
May 10, 2004 Crack Pipes for Everyone!
I stumbled upon this review of GNOME 2.6 by Nicholas Petreley via OSNews. Now, I'm no self-proclaimed Linux desktop expert, but I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable GNOME user, I even wrote up a review or two that were considered pretty decent. Given the longevity of Nick in this community, I was appalled by the utter disrespect shown in this article. Luckily for us, fools choose emotion over straight facts, so in this entry I will simply refute his comments with facts.
Obviously Mr. Petreley has chosen to outright lie about GNOME and its capabilities, so you can call this an open letter, in which I will happily debate in public, or whatever, since most of what he says, just plain ain't true. Sure, not everyone likes GNOME, and surely everyone has strong opinions about the spatial Nautilus, but misdirection is just dishonest.
Let's start off with this gem:
"Each time I get a new version of GNOME, there's this feeling of anticipation and exhilaration -- a feeling that this new version of GNOME can't possibly turn out to be as bad as the last one. But so far, each new version lives down to the same low standards set by the previous one."
Does anyone reading this quote, right off the bat assume that this is going to be a fair review of GNOME whatsoever? I can't even formulate a response to this.
The GNOME file manager, Nautilus, no longer allows users to navigate through folders as one might use a Web browser or Windows Explorer.
Misconception #1. The standard tree view is available by right clicking on a folder and choosing "Browse Folders", via the menu using "Browse Filesystem", or via the panel icon that looks like a file cabinet (it's there by default). So, three seperate methods to access the old view, one of which is even on the panel by default, yet Nicholas, with his years of Linux experience, can't seem to find it, naturally GNOME has robbed him of this ability.
If this sounds familiar, it's because this was the default behavior of Windows 95, OS/2 and early versions of Mac OS.
Windows 95 was never spatial. It was mimicked, poorly. Since Mr. Petreley can't seem to define what spatial is in the first place, and which OS implemented it in which way if at all, we're left with ye olde "Doesn't work like Explorer, it sucks." excuse. There's more to spatial than one folder per window. I'd explain it, but there are plenty of resources available that define this, unfortunately Nicholas failed to comprehend even one of them.
Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders.
GConf is nothing like the Windows Registry, except for the similar appearance of their respective editors. If Mr. Petreley cares to compare and contrast GConf and the Windows Registry he would know this. In fact Nicholas, I will paypal you $100 US if you can name three architectural similarities between GConf and the Registry.
Of course, this flaw has nothing to do with the inflexibility of the primitive graphical tool kit upon which GNOME was based.
This is another passage that I can't even comprehend, and isn't worthy of replying to. I'd like to quote it for the record though. Note the lack of evidence when defining "primitive" and "inflexibility". I don't think anyone that has used GTK's language bindings will use the word "inflexible".
GNOME grew out of the desire to free people from Microsoft's ability to dictate what users can or can't do.
Well someone better tell the GNOME developers, I'm pretty sure that they're out to make a kickass free desktop. I su
Captain: Ummm... Where did you say we were? Navigator: My instruments read that we're over LAX. Captain: Then why the FUCK are we over Hawaii? Navigation Screen: *LOL, d00dz! U R too dumb t00 n0t uze W1|\|d0z3 on ur navsystems!! hanhan, surfs up!!!*
Last time I had an MSDN sub, all the products that required activation off the shelf also required activation when installed from the MSDN CDs. That includes Windows XP, Office XP, Visio 2002 and Windows Server 2003. IIRC, even VS.Net requires activation.
Microsoft ships you all of thier patches with the MSDN update CDs too, so you can test your application and find out what thier latest patches broke and why.
As I said, I haven't had access to MSDN for a couple of years, but I imagine this would still be the case.
Just like any company can decide they want to cell a doohickey for $1000 more than everyone else, but if they conspire with the other doohickey vendors to all raise their price by $1000 so they can make nice profit, it's illegal.
Is doing market research and coming to the same conclusion as everyone else a conspiracy?
IIRC, it was only Intel who had the arrogance^Wwill to try and push RDRAM on consumers. Since the other RAM and chipset makers could see past Intel's marketing facade, they could produce more DDR chips/RAM at slightly lower prices for AMD processors. This let them move more product at a better margin. DDR production meant les RDRAM stuff being made - effectively driving up the price of Rambus's technology further. *cue death spiral for RDRAM*
I'll wager it was common business sense, not conspiracy or collusion, that kept RDRAM production low and it's price high.
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale
on
Gmail Addresses For Sale
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Ahem. Imagine, if you will, this option setting for you GMail account:
If more than
[ ] 100
[ ] 500
[ ] 1000
[ ] 2000 other GMail users have recieved an e-mail with the same content as your Matching content threshold, treat it as SPAM.
Hmmm... Random words at the start of a SPAM message? OK:
Matching content threshold is the precentage of an e-mail that matches the content of e-mail that is sent to other users. Select your matching content threshold:
[ ] 95%
[ ] 90%
[ ] 80%
[ ] 70%
Lastly, with this option:
SPAM should be
[ ] Deleted
[ ] Flagged
cheap spamming would be nigh impossible. Google's search tech is certainly capable of doing this. Off hand, I can't see much that spammers can do to circumvent it, either.
OSS has more traction than you think, friend. It's the best friend I have right now, and I'm a hardware monkey/network admin/IT manager.
Open source is an integral part of the enterprise environment these days in larger organizations, but that doesnt mean that its "linux on every desktop".
Agreed, except for the "in larger organisations" part. I do the above job for a not so large outfit, and Open Source is something I try to employ as much as possible.
But we are still some distance from "open source dominating the environments", open source is gaining traction mostly in the areas where the developers have a big say in what is chosen. When it comes to the choice of "backbone platform", this is still very much a management choice of commercial platforms.
Open source may not be deployed everywhere in my company (yet), but it does affect any decision I make - in a round about way, it does dominate the environment. "Do I need to pay this company licensing fees, or is there an OSS equivalent package that will do it for less?" is something I muse every day on he job. I manage infrastructure, and right now, I'm deploying Linux as the backbone of my network, replacing a proprietary systems that adds no value when compared to the OSS alternative. I'm not a developer (any code I write shows it, too), but I like having the OSS clue stick to apply to the heads of any arrogant vendors (Quark, you are sooooo next in line for lumber off the forehead). The threat of OSS to thier bottom line is extremely valuable to me in keeping costs down and vendors honest.
IMHO, one of the main reasons that OSS exists is because some developers got a little too full of themselves and in thier arrogance pissed off the wrong people - end users like me. If most people weren't willing to actually use OSS, it simply would not be as pervasive as it is.
Great - the Geronimo project makes a high profile announcement on Slashdot, and they didn't protect the front page against trolls.
A publicly editable Wiki is not the best place to announce a major milestone - how about a nice, static, HTML only press release? Getting trolled like this doesn't exactly say "professional" to me.
Search on google for "cross platform toolkit" and note the second link - the XPToolkit from our friends at Mozilla. On that page what is the first text after the page title?
Vision: We make cross-platform user interfaces as easy to build and customize as web pages.
IMHO, Miguel isn't the only person who got scared - my bet is BillG and/or StevieB saw what Mozilla does and had a $3B coniption - XAML being it's end product. It's how Microsoft reacts every time something provides a hint of a credible threat to Windows dominance - destroy it before it destroys us.
I know that I would love a RAD tool (a la VisualBasic maybe, but with less suckage) to make XUL apps. I could then write-once-run-on-gecko with any of the quick and dirty development work I had to do, and the OS wouldn't matter one whit. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)
Myself, I prefer to roll those into my install CD via slipstreaming. (Google for "XP slipstream hotfix" for more) That way, I get as much protection as possible OOTB.
Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....
I think of Debian Stable as a server only distro - rocksolid, never varies, tested in the bowels of hell itself on 11 different architectures. Is it old and crufty? Yup, but some people like it that way - it's a known quanity.
If you want a desktop distro, get the current Sarge installer and go to town - you can even go to Sid with good results. To me, the Debian development model was heavily borrowed by the Fedora project, and it shows. Fedora seems to be closing in on Debians package count and ease of use, and AFAICT is nothing but Free Software to boot. If this is indeed the case, it would seem that Debian is "the one true distro" (how's that for flamebait), a point of reference for all the others. Just as there are the -mm, -ac and -ck kernel trees beside the Linus tree, we have Fedora/RedHat, SUSE, Mandrake and others who are judged against the Debian distro.
I'm glad Debian is around and sticking to the intent of thier social contract - it keeps the other distro makers honest, since Debian matches or surpasses thier functionalty and will always be Free as in speech, and likely Free as in beer too. I don't normally use Debian, but I support them fully in this.
Slashdot Mirror
That's security through obsurity, really, isn't it?
AES et. al. means that noone can eavesdrop on your conversation - It's encrypted form end to end. That means if your talk to your bank via https over an AES secured connection, your connection is secured to thier web server at layer 2, while your passwords etc. - session data - are encrypted at layer 4.
That way, if someone does somehow break into your converstaion, the session data is still protected.
AES secures the physical layer, the other systems secure the actual conversation.
Soko
I doubt they're your garden variety "OMG BillG iz teh debil" Loonix fanbois, friend.
They are a serious enterprise, and there must be a reason something as provocative as " not just because we hated Microsoft" would come out in an interview.
IOW - It's likley that Microsoft's products and/or policies have left a very, very bad impression with these people, and they're glad that they have a compeditor with which to smack Microsoft in the head with.
Soko
Call me a space hog...
If you're that obsesive about 10MB of space, space cadet would be more apropos, I'm afraid.
Soko
Ahem. Think he's kidding, don't you?
Are we phishing for passwords? Yes. Are we preying on the gullibility of millions of computer users? Yes. Are we using the information that we're receiving to access as much cash/credit from the end-users as is possible, probably ruinging their credit and their lives? Yes.
There it is.
No money means you don't go out.
Not going out means you don't meet any people.
Not meeting any people means you don't meet people of the opposite sex.
Not meeting people of the opposite sex means you don't breed.
Ergo, these people are thinning the herd, darwinistically removing the gullible people who stupidly let terrorists into our fair lands.
Let them be, says I.
Soko
If you count on Windows, you are at the mercy of Microsoft and thier business model. They will try to make you and your business so depandant on them that you can't go in any direction but that which they tell you - you become thier cash cow.
Concientiously deploying thier solutions, however, means that they become just another vendor - who you can turf at any time for something better, if and when it comes along.
Realising what amount of control you give a vendor ultimately keeps control of your business where it belongs - with you.
There are probably more than a few businesses that woke up to the fact that Microsoft had an inordinate amount of control over them when they introduced Licensing 6.0. Once it sunk in that Microsoft was actually capable of exacting an annual tribute from them (and actually willing to attempt this), the ultimate damage was done. IMHO, Microsoft's huberis is killing Windows, not the worms.
*goes back to finishing the deployment of 2 brand new Linux servers...
Soko
Yeah.
A bunch of dummies inflating with enough hot air to stuff a shirt, all for all too much money.
Sounds like Congress, doesn't it?
Soko
ESR has had a nasty habit of donning a tin-foil hat, jumping up and down and then ranting like an in-coherent zealot - to the detrement of OSS in the eyes of CxO types. "Look at how this loony, a OSS leader, responds - is this the type of person you want associated with your business?"
/. trolls could have done better.
Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, ESR seems to be responding to the critisism of his past rants and couter-productive behaviour. This one, though perhaps self-serving at times, is measured and based on facts. AdTI's strategy of provoking a senseless flamewar with the OSS community is backfiring. If they had of made a more convincing argument, they may have gotten somewhere, but as it is, any of the
Soko
AGhhh! You've just fucked up my timeline, as I was supposed to read the whole story from the link! Think before you post about the future!
Soko
/me hits "reply"
;-)
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Why?
"GOURMET COFFEE USES MORE COFFEE AND IS THEREFORE STRONGER."
Whoa - dude, chill. Try some de-caf next time.
Soko
I beg to differ with your "Linux is a very difficult product to commoditize" statement. Linux is turning operating systems into a commodity - the tool is cheap, it's the expertise to use that particular tool that's pricey.
.com era and are now struggling, outsourcing is bad. If you're a poor farmer in India whose child just turned the educaion that you paid for with the sweat of your brow into a steady, paying job, outsourcing is good.
As with any tool, you have to take the good with the bad. Linux cannot choose sides - as this post points out, Linux is just software - it itself has no moral compass.
Too, which side of the equation you on seems to define the morality - if you're someone who made out like a bandit in the
I've been affected by outsourcing myself - the job I held was "terminated" since the whole department was picked up and moved to a cheaper part of the country. Different story, same effect - I was out of a job for a year, and took a lower paying position to feed my family.
Anyone "talking up Linux" is good, IMHO - even my former employers. As you said, it's not Linux's fault. It's just market forces in action.
Soko
"On the plus side, Napster users at the school would be able to download as much music as they like for $3 per month - Windows users only, of course.
Of course! I mean, those iPod/Mac yuppies already have iTunes, and share music with those Communist Loonix weirdos? No way.
Sadly, the DRM restrictions with Napster run high. Users can only make 3 copies of a song before the files become unplayable. In addition, students must pay 99 cents per song to move the file from their computer onto a CD or music playing device.
3 copies? 99 cents to move a song across some copper wires? Well, until the DRM is cracked, anyway.
Students would also only be able to download songs while they are on the school network. Once they leave school their music disappears.
Suuuuure. (See above about the DRM)
Has renting culture ever been more fun?"
*sigh* That statement is sooo true. It's a shame that the Napster name is still attached to this. In it's heyday, Napster showed a hint what a free culture could be - this is just stupid. I can't see thier service surviving in the same market as iTunes, not to mention thier total reliance on DRM to force money out of people. DRM is like balloon - once it's breached, it disappears - forever.
Napster is a zombie - it's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet.
Soko
I can understand your (mostly WRONG) attitudes towards Canada, since you were actually raised in a different country.
;-)
That's the point though - Canada is a different country than the US - Canada is not USA-Lite. I don't mind the things you're railing against, since I've decided to accept them as the price of having my country the way it is - which is the country I love. If the poster is willing to accept that things will be different here, he'll come to love his new country, too.
BTW, try some of the establishments on St. Catherine street in Vieux Montréal - the ladies there will change your mind about Quebecers being unfriendly.
Soko
Captain: Ummm... Where did you say we were?
Navigator: My instruments read that we're over LAX.
Captain: Then why the FUCK are we over Hawaii?
Navigation Screen: *LOL, d00dz! U R too dumb t00 n0t uze W1|\|d0z3 on ur navsystems!! hanhan, surfs up!!!*
Soko
You would be wrong.
Last time I had an MSDN sub, all the products that required activation off the shelf also required activation when installed from the MSDN CDs. That includes Windows XP, Office XP, Visio 2002 and Windows Server 2003. IIRC, even VS.Net requires activation.
Microsoft ships you all of thier patches with the MSDN update CDs too, so you can test your application and find out what thier latest patches broke and why.
As I said, I haven't had access to MSDN for a couple of years, but I imagine this would still be the case.
Soko
Just like any company can decide they want to cell a doohickey for $1000 more than everyone else, but if they conspire with the other doohickey vendors to all raise their price by $1000 so they can make nice profit, it's illegal.
Is doing market research and coming to the same conclusion as everyone else a conspiracy?
IIRC, it was only Intel who had the arrogance^Wwill to try and push RDRAM on consumers. Since the other RAM and chipset makers could see past Intel's marketing facade, they could produce more DDR chips/RAM at slightly lower prices for AMD processors. This let them move more product at a better margin. DDR production meant les RDRAM stuff being made - effectively driving up the price of Rambus's technology further. *cue death spiral for RDRAM*
I'll wager it was common business sense, not conspiracy or collusion, that kept RDRAM production low and it's price high.
Soko
Like the airlines think Saftey, Saftey, Saftey - Microsoft need to adopt the slogan.. Security Security Security
Let's hope they get past "developers developers developers"...
Soko
Which is somewhat ironic given the headline Projected 'Average' Longhorn System Is A Whopper
"Have it YOUR way" indeed.
Soko
Soko
The cynic in me thinks the term "Open Source" is used more as a bargaining tool than anything that gets implemented. I'm not sure I like that idea.
Wrong. Unless you show that OSS is credible threat to a vendor, they won't take you seriously and the barganing power is gone.
This is free market competition - do it cheaper and/or better than the other guy (OSS or otherwise) or goodbye.
Soko
OSS has more traction than you think, friend. It's the best friend I have right now, and I'm a hardware monkey/network admin/IT manager.
Open source is an integral part of the enterprise environment these days in larger organizations, but that doesnt mean that its "linux on every desktop".
Agreed, except for the "in larger organisations" part. I do the above job for a not so large outfit, and Open Source is something I try to employ as much as possible.
But we are still some distance from "open source dominating the environments", open source is gaining traction mostly in the areas where the developers have a big say in what is chosen. When it comes to the choice of "backbone platform", this is still very much a management choice of commercial platforms.
Open source may not be deployed everywhere in my company (yet), but it does affect any decision I make - in a round about way, it does dominate the environment. "Do I need to pay this company licensing fees, or is there an OSS equivalent package that will do it for less?" is something I muse every day on he job. I manage infrastructure, and right now, I'm deploying Linux as the backbone of my network, replacing a proprietary systems that adds no value when compared to the OSS alternative. I'm not a developer (any code I write shows it, too), but I like having the OSS clue stick to apply to the heads of any arrogant vendors (Quark, you are sooooo next in line for lumber off the forehead). The threat of OSS to thier bottom line is extremely valuable to me in keeping costs down and vendors honest.
IMHO, one of the main reasons that OSS exists is because some developers got a little too full of themselves and in thier arrogance pissed off the wrong people - end users like me. If most people weren't willing to actually use OSS, it simply would not be as pervasive as it is.
Soko
LOL JEWS
~ GNAA
Great - the Geronimo project makes a high profile announcement on Slashdot, and they didn't protect the front page against trolls.
A publicly editable Wiki is not the best place to announce a major milestone - how about a nice, static, HTML only press release? Getting trolled like this doesn't exactly say "professional" to me.
Soko
Interesting indeed.
Search on google for "cross platform toolkit" and note the second link - the XPToolkit from our friends at Mozilla. On that page what is the first text after the page title?
Vision: We make cross-platform user interfaces as easy to build and customize as web pages.
IMHO, Miguel isn't the only person who got scared - my bet is BillG and/or StevieB saw what Mozilla does and had a $3B coniption - XAML being it's end product. It's how Microsoft reacts every time something provides a hint of a credible threat to Windows dominance - destroy it before it destroys us.
I know that I would love a RAD tool (a la VisualBasic maybe, but with less suckage) to make XUL apps. I could then write-once-run-on-gecko with any of the quick and dirty development work I had to do, and the OS wouldn't matter one whit. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)
Soko
Myself, I prefer to roll those into my install CD via slipstreaming. (Google for "XP slipstream hotfix" for more) That way, I get as much protection as possible OOTB.
Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....
Soko
I think of Debian Stable as a server only distro - rocksolid, never varies, tested in the bowels of hell itself on 11 different architectures. Is it old and crufty? Yup, but some people like it that way - it's a known quanity.
If you want a desktop distro, get the current Sarge installer and go to town - you can even go to Sid with good results. To me, the Debian development model was heavily borrowed by the Fedora project, and it shows. Fedora seems to be closing in on Debians package count and ease of use, and AFAICT is nothing but Free Software to boot. If this is indeed the case, it would seem that Debian is "the one true distro" (how's that for flamebait), a point of reference for all the others. Just as there are the -mm, -ac and -ck kernel trees beside the Linus tree, we have Fedora/RedHat, SUSE, Mandrake and others who are judged against the Debian distro.
I'm glad Debian is around and sticking to the intent of thier social contract - it keeps the other distro makers honest, since Debian matches or surpasses thier functionalty and will always be Free as in speech, and likely Free as in beer too. I don't normally use Debian, but I support them fully in this.
Soko