Re: Xandros, Lindows, Debian, the future of distros

[Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>]

On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 12:42, mike808@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
> > If most of the work Xandros has put into their distro is proprietary,
> > then yes, their code will die with the company (assuming it dies).
> 
> From what I can tell from using it, the only proprietary pieces are the
> CW plugin+office, and the "File Manager" they got from Corel. I haven't
> played with the file manager enough to know why it's better than, say, 
> Konqueror or Nautilus. Also, their installer focuses on delivering the
> "10 most wanted" items they set out to do. Resizing XP partitions to make
> room for your Linux is a big plus. I don't know if that part is also
> Corel-proprietary or GPL'd. I haven't seen other distros advertise that
> function in their installs yet. (I'm NOT talking about FAT32 resizing).

To my knowledge, most OSS/free systems for resizing use parted to do the
dirty work.  Parted's chart for filesystem compatibility does not yet
include NTFS.  So, if Xandros can resize XP partitions, it's probably a
Xandros-proprietary thing.

> > Now, I don't claim any special bias towards Lindows.  Their recent
> > actions have me plenty disturbed, especially seeing how Bruce Perens has
> > reacted.  But I still give credit where credit is due, and they are due
> > some credit for their positive engagement of Debian in the past.
> 
> Though, I think I see a special bias towards Debian peeking out here... :=)
> 
>   Xandros: No nods to Debian = thumbs down.
>   Lindows: Kudos to Debian = thumbs up.
> 
> Not my basis for "qualifying" a distro, but to each his/her own.

Well, it's not just Debian, though I have more knowledge about them
because I'm a member of the project.  And it's not really about "kudos",
either; for example, Corel had some very nice things to say about
Debian, at least in the beginning.

The basic idea is: how engaged are they with the community?  Do they
give back, or just take?  Do they coordinate their efforts with others? 
Do they hinder or help community efforts?

I apply these questions to any projects out there, not just Debian. 
Debian gets more attention because I'm more closely associated, so I
have more knowledge of the problems they experience.

TransGaming, for example, has a black mark in my book because of their
work to divide the Wine project.  (And they've threatened the Debian
Project with legal action, but that's just a confirmation of the
previous black mark.)  I don't recommend TransGaming to people because
of that; I'm more likely to recommend VMWare, Win4Lin, or CodeWeavers
instead (when I don't recommend plain old Wine).

So, Lindows scored high (until a few days ago) because they've been
communicating with us, they listened when we told them they screwed up,
and they coordinate with us on some things.  Corel scored low, and
Xandros continues to score low, because of their lack on all these
fronts.  The same is true of older distros such as Caldera/SCO, and even
some other projects that divide the community, like OpenSSL (which isn't
really their fault, but still) and GNU Readline.

I would hope that we all take that into consideration when considering
what "open source" companies we will consider doing business with. 
People who poison the well should not be encouraged in that endeavor.

> > Microsoft's subscription model, as I've heard it described, is a little
> > different from RHN, Click-N-Run, etc.  The various Linux distributors
> > let you use the software you've downloaded after your subscription runs
> > out; you're just on your own regarding updates.  MS, on the other hand,
> > wants Office to shut off if you stop feeding the meter.
> 
> But that's the ProprietaryWay(tm). If you pick and choose who can run your
> software through horrible, abusive EULAs, then figuring out how to take away
> what people think they've already paid for without them catching on is their
> problem. But, they're all in the game of turning software from one-time
> purchases into subscriptions with recurring revenue.

Heh.  Me too, although I actually think we've got a winning idea on that
front.

> > Adding a CD to a distro package costs real money.  I can see why they'd
> > be keen on reducing the disk count, especially if they can provide a
> > service to replace the disks.  As a customer, I'd sure rather run long
> > downloads than pay $$$ per CD extra upfront for software I might never
> > use.  YMMV, of course.
> 
> It's the "long downloads" part that rubs people's instant gratification 
> button the wrong way. The "I paid $30 _and_ I have to download for three
> days to finish installing this thing?" problem of Jane and Joe Dialup is 
> very real to them. And they wonder about tying up their one phone line for 
> that long and their uncertainty about restarts after interruptions.

If this is too much of a problem, I'm sure Lindows (or whoever) will be
forced to beef up their packaged disk set or hope and pray for DVD-ROM
ubiquity.

> One thing that is clear - add some other apt repository, and your support
> disappears. That's vital to the commercial / corporate users. When the
> apt repositories become the chokepoints, we'll start to see subscription
> fees rise. I wouldn't put it past universities that currently host these
> resources for free try to get in on some cost recovery action. Particularly
> when those served are not usually taxpayers of the entity funding the
> university.

If a university is using a resource, they can usually justify bandwidth
costs resulting from hosting the resource locally.  This is especially
true if the alternative is having lots of students use the upstream pipe
for downloading their software instead of the local on-campus mirror.

The support issue is a big one.  The solution, of course, is to buy
support for apt-based systems.  Not many people are doing that right
now.

> > People are just now waking up to the advantages of freedom.  It will be
> > interesting to see how closed-source vendors react.
> 
> Yes. Even the closed-source vendors that play in the Linux and GPL arenas.
> What's disconcerting is that it is very likely, due to our corporate suckups
> and lackeys in DC, the U.S. will NOT be the place where the origin, creation,
> and exercise of these freedoms take place.
> 
> Increasingly, we will see more ideas and their benefits fleeing the U.S.
> in order to escape the tyranny of our Intellecual Persecution(tm) (IP) laws.

Of course, this assumes that the rest of the world doesn't seek to
emulate us, which would be a bad assumption in my view.  

In a world where governments everywhere seek to restrict IP, the USA has
one advantage: a Bill of Rights with the force of law.  This places an
upper bound on the restrictions that can be enforced here.  I don't
think it will be possible here to have a Great Firewall like Australia
and China have, or libel laws like the UK, or posting restrictions like
Europe's.

Which is, of course, no reason to argue against vigilance.

-- 
Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>

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