Delay? Looks bad for Fedora

[Noah Silva [Mailing list]]

> > So I don't think RedHat is wicked --
> > I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
>
> Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE.
> I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's
> Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in
> RH's new scheme.  Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to
> see where the chips fall.

I think the whole Novell thing will be interesting as well, but there will
be room for two big distros I think.

More about Fedora though, think about this:
a.) Linux consumers don't, as a majority *like* caldera and Suse's
approach, to force you to pay for "free" software.  We want the companies
to make money, and many of us choose to buy things like StarOffice, but we
like knowing at least we -could- have it for free.  The home users are
less lucrative, more picky, and more difficult to support.  The server
market has compatible hardware, easier, more tested desires under unix in
general, and deeper pockets.  Something like RHEL is actually best for the
enterprise.  It doesn't matter if a web server had the latest gone, or
even apache, it matters that it work reliably for 24 hours a day.  For
home users though, even many non-technical ones, they want to try the
latest gadgets.  They want iTunes to work, and their iPod, and their
lexmark printer, and their Cannon scanner.  It all should work, and
magically.. even without the manufacturer's support.  Worse yet, they (we)
don't like when we hear about some new piece of software, like mozilla 1.5
or gnome 2.6, and we can't easily install and try it.

Look at the advantages of redhat and mandrake for home users:
a. easy to install
b. easy to set up
c. a lot of things "just work", very polished.
d. Well supported by closed source plug-ins, etc.
e. often gets the newest features.

But then look at the advantages of debian:
a. MANY MANY more packages available, from large to small.
b. MUCH better dependancy handling, and simplified installation.
c. Community support.
d. you can stay on a continuously updated release.

Redhat is just seeking to combine these, and I think it's great.  Before,
if you wanted to install something not "in" redhat, like say.. Zapping (a
tv viewer), you had to go find an RPM, and that RPM might have pulled in 5
dependancies.. and those packages might have been the same as other RPMs
that were named differently, needed by something else, and conflicted.
Redhat obviously needed to increase the width of their home offering...
but to officially support even more packages, to spend more time and
energy (and money), for the users who they don't make any money off of?

What do you realistically think the alternative to FC was?  I think it's
one you would like a lot less!

 -- noah silva