RedHat, Fedora future?

[Peter Boy]

Am Fr, den 06.02.2004 schrieb Tim Kossack um 17:51:
> (sorry for the long response)
> i tried to verify your statement in looking what comes included with
> rhws, but i couldn't gather any info if it ships with those plugs
> installed. given red hat's general stance in regards shipping
> non-oss/free legally questionable whatever software as part of their
> products, quite frankly i would be very surprised if they do.

The current RH wegsite is not very clear about what is included in
detail. In the old days you could find a listing of the conent of each
included CD. I'm missing that, too.

Of course, you will not find mp3 plugin, DeCSS and so on which may rise
legal or patent issues in the US. But you should find (at least I read
about it elsewhere) other ingrediens like Java, Acrobat and alike. 

> as far as the "apples to oranges"-comparison is concerned, my critics
> was and is primarily aimed at their commercial desktop offerings 

OK. missed that. We are on the fedora list here.

Some plugins you are talking about (e.g. mp3) are rarely essential
ingredients of a commercial desktop. Others are available (e.g. Java).


> it's just that i'm asking myself why they seem not interested at all to
> tackle the issues (let alone seeing that there's one in the first
> place), when their competition seems not having to have any problems
> acknowledging and adressing them...
The recent changes may be their way to address them


> my impression is basically that red hat hasn't at all understood (or
> needs to show it yet that they have) what makes a really polished
> desktop distribution. i don't make any difference between a good desktop
> for home use and a good desktop for businesses. neither does market
> leader microsoft. ....
Hm, MS offers a XP home and a XP Pro

> getting in danger to sound circular, a good desktop is a good desktop
> because it's a good overall desktop.

You need a good "desktop basic infrastructure", which may be the same
for home and corporate usage (but populated with different pieces). As I
argued in my previous post, Red Hat is the one who heavily invested in
development of such a "desktop basic infrastructure" (using existent OSS
components and combining them in a new way). And they are the only one
of the big Linux distributors (but I don't know Lindows)

> i just miss them going the extra-mile which one
> should and could expect from the market leader.
They did, see above.


> then, besides certain undoubted advantages - i also see a problem with
> the "community-based" approach, namely because the community around red
> hat's testbed - fedora - consists mainly of geeks, means people who want
> all the latest stuff, who know about configuring linux, where to get
> stuff that's missing etc. therefore, they are mostly satisfied with
> the ease-of-use, amount of polish/status quo.

In theory you may be right. But in reality there were a lot of
discussion here about usability for non-geek users.


> > Rh is the first distro with a usable, structured menu system and desktop
> > to be meant "for work". Compare it to thw bloaded SuSE, Mandrake, ...
> > menues and destops. It needed a lot of developement efforts to make it
> > work. It's not perfect yet, but a huge step into the right direction.
> > So, contrary to your statement, you might say RH was the first distro
> > which made some real efforts to bring Linux on the end users's desktop.
> 
> what are you talking about? you might call suse, mandrake etc.
> "bloated", but afaik, many suse/mandrake users are appreciating yast or
> mandrake control center etc.

Yast is not a menu system nor a desktop, but a configuration tool.
Regarding the menues and the desktop SuSE is "basically waiting for ...
kde" as you wrote (not RH). They try to extend the KDE menue and you
find a SuSE menue inside a (hidden) KDE menue, but the menue editor
shows you the kde menue first, menue entries are doubled, they install a
lot of software which does not show up in the menue, the don't obey
different context (e.g. the configuration menue entry in their Gnome
menue opens the Kde configuration).  And there are many more examples of
the un-usability of the SuSE desktop (or Mandrake - not so bad as SuSE).

In short: I can't see any proof for your theses that SuSE (or others)
have a better polished desktop (desktop - not quantity of delivered
software)


> at least suse seems to have been able to make a profit from their normal
> distribution, 

They are not. They are heavily sponsored by IBM, they had to cut down
their stuff, they had to switch to a smaller office suite, .....


> even if it's correct that red hat was the first to bring linux on the
> enduser's desktop, so what? fact is, nearly every other distro aiming at
> the desktop has surpassed red hat's offerings regarding usability and
> completeness by a more or less wide margin - at least they are seeing
> the issue that needs to get adressed.

It's an open race (with Red Hat currently being (slightly) in front?). 
But the finishing line, the criteria who will be the first, is subject
to decision while the race is going on. If the criteria is "feature
richness" SuSE may win. If the criteria is a smaller, but well
integrated und functional software, specifically selected for your work,
Red Hat may win. And there more criteria which can be combined and will
result in different decisions.