to linux or not to linux...

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Grant M. wrote:
> > If you're
> > thinking that purchasing RHEL is supporting the community, it is to the
> > extent that Red Hat is, but IMHO, there are better ways to do so
> > (contributing code, reporting bugs, advocating Linux, starting an open
> > source project, etc.).
> Those are other ways, but in my opinion they are only different ways, 
> not necessarily "better". Supporting Linux isn't just contributing code. 
> It's supporting the companies that sell it, the companies & 
> organizations that champion it, and the people that support it; not just 
> with volunteer efforts or lip service, but with hard cash. The FSF is a 
> great organization and donating to them a great idea, but indicating 
> that giving money to RedHat or Suse (my preference) is a bad idea is 
> itself a REALLY bad idea. Unless you WANT to see Bill Gates rule the 
> universe ;-).

I agree.  Remember that SUSE and Red Hat are not just packaging up free 
work done by others and making money off of them.  Besides their work on 
applets and patches, etc, there's the installers they invest energy on 
that make it possible for the newbies to even DREAM of installing Linux, 
and the marketing they do so the newbies even know about it.

Many companies (including my current contract) insist on having support 
with their operating systems.  If Red Hat wasn't around, I'm not sure they 
would be playing with Linux at all.

That being said, I feel Red Hat has abandoned the personal user as a 
priority, and that's a shame.  Fedora works well for many, but as a resent 
posts show, it has more problems than it should on the important stuff 
(and disk geometry counts as important stuff).  That leaves Mandrake and 
SUSE as the only Linux distros with real popularity and muscle.

----
DDDD   David Kramer                           http://thekramers.net
DK KD  
DKK D  "I know, I know. It's a russian thing. When we're about to
DK KD  do something stupid, we like to catalog the full extent of
DDDD   our stupidity for future reference"      -Ivanova, Babylon 5