On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 07:30:11AM -0400, dep wrote:
my point is that there is no good reason why ximian gnome or any other gnome shouldn't have installed perfectly on your system. but it didn't, and that fact can be laid at the feet of distributions having decided to wander off in their own directions, again for no good reason. if there were a reason for it, that would be one thing. but there isn't.
Unfortunately, there are very good reasons for for-profit companies to do stuff like this. It's called money. You and Ben and Anders laid out the reasons nicely, vendor lock-in, Microsoft style. With the complete source available, it's technically not possible to lock someone in, but it is practically possible, by making it painful enough. In the long run, this has me very worried about EVERY commercial linux distribution. Market pressures may force them to fork linux the way unix was forked in the 1980s. Except for Debian, all major linux distros exist for one purpose: to make money and provide a return on investment to the shareholders. I know SuSE is privately held at the moment, but they plan to become a publicly held corporation. And that means that the needs of the shareholders have priority over the needs of the customers. Obviously, there is a delicate balancing act that goes on in any corporation. If you alienate all your customers, you no longer have a business. What I'm afraid will happen down the road is that things like the LSB and FHS will be abandoned if customers can be locked in for greater profits. For now, Debian holds everyones feet to the fire by staying free and open in every sense. Maybe my fears are unfounded. Only time will tell. Best Regards, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Got spam? Get spastic http://spastic.sourceforge.net