RedHat, Fedora future?

[Tim Kossack]

Am Sa, den 07.02.2004 schrieb Peter Boy um 13:10:
> 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. 

(ok... if not something _new_ and interesting comes up here, i'm out
after this one - this gets too much timeconsuming and repetative!)

if so, one step into the right direction...
1. sun (us - based company) ships with all the other plugs, means media
player, java, mp3 (not sure about flash)
http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/index.html
they also don't seem to have that "oss-compliance-problem" that red hat
seems to have: "look, customer, uh yeah, we know our competition
includes this stuff, but because it's somehow not in compliance with the
oss-license, we're sorry we can't. so now you know this, you _do_
understand why you get less for same price here, don't you? besides, if
you want this stuff, you can of course include it by yourself, but
because it's not part of our offering, we aren't responsible for any
problems occuring if you do (you might even loose your warranty)!"
that's just _insane_ - i really don't envy red hats sales...!

> > 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).

again - sun, lindows, mandrake and partly suse are strongly disagreeing
with you (and red hat). 

> > 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

i'm curious -what are the differences between xp home and xp pro besides
that one is up to dual-cpu and the other just for single cpu, and
especially reg. plugs and usability?

> > 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 don't know what you exactly mean by "desktop basic infrastructure". if
we both mean the same, i' d say that suse, sun, ximian are at least as
heavily involved in developing the "d.b.i"-parts as red hat is. also,
they all rely on those same projects as core for their desktop
offerings  - can't see red hat doing anything "new" or different here!
as for mandrake and lindows: they don't have the resources to play an
important role in the big projects like kde, gnome, openoffice etc., but
they're taking the stuff developed there and refining it, closing the
gaps with selfdeveloped stuff etc.

as far as usability and plugs are concerned, i already stated that for
the life of me i can't figure out why there should be any difference
between home and corporate usage (neither do microsoft, sun, lindows,
mandrake and to a lesser extent suse), and that i regard that
"difference" an artificial one, a poor excuse for poor usability (or
lack of plugs).

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

they don't. they do the basic stuff as you outlined above, but then
leave the extra polishing to mandrake, lindows, sun etc.
means they sew, but leave the crop of their efforts to others (or at
least the others are making more out of it)...


> > 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.

not enough by far!

> > > 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). 

suse is afaik as heavily involved into kde as red hat is into gnome. and
yes, both could do more atop their efforts in these projects...

> 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).

just because the other distros might no be perfect, it doesn't mean that they 
not at least having recognized how important usability/plugs are, and trying 
their best (ok, maybe not suse) to improve it. red hat doesn't do it's best, 
at least what they consider "best" is not enough. 

> 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)

look - leaving this plugin issue aside (which, again, _does_ make a huge
difference) - they're tons of reviews out there which are outlining the
pros and cons of the various desktops. my impression is that red hat's
desktop offerings (up2 red hat 9, rhpw seems not to be much different
reg. usability - maybe partly in plugs) are  - in terms of overall
desktop experience - _last_, and that the gap is widening, not closing.
to continue that discussion, we'd need to get into the details, the
differences (advantages) of the mentioned distributions. 
i've experiences with suse 8.x, red hat 8+9, lindows (fresh install).
as and when time allows, in order to not rely on other people's reviews
(which nevertheless should contain enough descriptions of concrete
adavantages of other distros over red hat), i'll try to also install
mandrake, suse 9.x, (can't get sun for free) over the next few weeks and
post the findings. besides, running linux and windows side by side as i
do can sometimes be a real eye-opener!
 
> > 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, .....

ok.

> > 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?). 

no way, s. a.

> 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.

can't see the contradiction you seem to see here, to the contrary, both
"feature richness" as well as "integration" are two requirements to
achieve good usability.