Red Hat 7.2 B2 comments (rant)

[Rob Ransbottom]

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Derek D. Martin wrote:

> My own experience has largely been the opposite.  I think it's more a
> question of what you're more familiar with and more comfortable with,
> than which is actually better.

I agree, familiarity is the primary issue.  Debian does have a better
track record but at the cost of being slower to release.

> Red Hat Linux is not GNU/Linux, it's Red Hat Linux.  There is only one
> GNU/Linux: debian GNU/Linux.  None of the rest of the Linux
> distributions have caved to rms's requests based on entirely spurious
> arguments to call their Linux distributions "GNU/Linux;" and as

I don't doubt rms' arguments were spurious, that does not de-legitimize
the request itself.  Redhat/Mandrake/SUSE may be as much GNU/Linux as
Debian but naturally they are less willing to advertise the fact.
They still want to have the consumer think that their free versions
are deficient compared to what you can buy.  Which is true, and true
to their mission.

I'm not a 'free software' partisan.  I have never bought 
rms' "information wants to be shared" tripe.

It didn't seem like a cave-in when Debian added GNU.  It seemed like
a recognition of where many key and enabling elements of Debian came from.
I only saw this as a Debian user, it seemed like the blip you'd expect
it to be.  I just figured it won a vote.  I didn't care for the name,
didn't see it as necessary, but could see it as reasonable, by the 
reasonable man test.  If you have juicy insider gossip, share it.

> such, they are not GNU/Linux -- they're whatever the vendor chooses to
> call it.

Well they're what people choose to call them, too.  Like debian. :-)
Don't feel bad, crack heads are far above those gutter scum,
bottom quoters.

rob                     Live the dream.