Fedora - The Next Generation

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 00:39, Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 10:50:37PM -0700, T. Nifty Hat Mitchell wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 06:20:10PM -0700, Craig White wrote:
> > ....
> > > > By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better
> > > > and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list.  Being
> > > > based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required,
> > > > something like a minimal install and add what you need.
> > > ----
> > > your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions
> > > is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should
> > > be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL
> > > for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for
> > > free...this is the ticket.
> > > 
> > > http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
> > > 
> > 
> > whiteboxlinux, Tao and Centos Linux...
> > 
> > Think clearly about using a parasitic distribution that takes the source
> > of a supported product and deprives the primary support organization
> > of it's beer money.
> ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/3/en/os/i386/SRPMS
> ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/enterprise/3AS/en/os/SRPMS
> 
> RedHat allows this, so it must feel that either it gains on doing this, or
> it isn't losing much (it decided against RH Linux and moved to Fedora for
> *some* reasons).
> 
> WhiteBox compiles and packages a distribution that is worthwhile to the
> community, for nothing. How is it being parasitic?
----
from dictionary.com "parasite"

1. Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on 
   or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the
   survival of its host.
2.   a. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of
        others without making any useful return.
     b. One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant.
3. A professional dinner guest, especially in ancient Greece.

Probably a fair statement that it is parasitic. The problem lies that
people attach a negative connotation to the term. Parasites are
sometimes beneficial to the hosts though the above suggests that this is
not the case...nature is full of contradictions.

By virtue of GPL and other various licenses, Red Hat must make source
available for their RHEL but not necessarily in this form. But
considering that the largesse and certainly the most valuable code in
RHEL is derived from others efforts, this seems to be a fair enough
proposition.

The problems with an RHEL clone are more to the tune of the fact that
you are uncertain of how many eyes are auditing it, that bug reports
don't get back to the providers (Red Hat) and of course, there is no
accountability (i.e. support).

It's an option, nothing more, nothing less.

Craig