--- Leon Brooks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sunday 17 March 2002 19:03, SI Reasoning wrote: > > --- Warly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Mandrake Linux is based on a fixed date releasing > >> due to market constraints (distributor/supplier > >> schedules). As a consequence the release date was > >> scheduled 3 months ago. On this date we have a > >> very little margin of 2 or 3 days, but not more. > > > My probem is not as much the release of software > that > > is not polished, as much as the fact that it never > > gets there after release either. If work continued > on > > 8.2, squashing bugs, fixing annoyances, until it > truly > > does reach stable... then by the time 8.3 came > around > > (or 9.0), administrators could feel comfortable > > installing 8.2. > > You seem to be a ssuming a stable target. Between > now and 9.0, KDE3 and > Gnome2 will stabilise, grow applications, and be > begging for inclusion in the > distribution. Mandrake is always aiming for a moving > target, and has to in > order to remain relevant; discount your expectations > accordingly. > > Cheers; Leon >
I understand that, but I also understand that business os and apps are a different beast than consumer. A consumer will often times run through 2 or 3 changes before a business does. There are still quite a few businesses running wordperfect 5.1 still (probably the last stable release of that product). I also act accordingly, I have been trying to ride out NT4 with the idea that I would replace those workstations with Mandrake once it becomes stable. I am becoming to wonder if that will ever happen. I understand that Linux is growing and maturing very fast and I personally enjoy the ride, however businesses depend on stability. When people are under the stress of day to day business they want to learn something once and use it the rest of their lives if possible, they want it to work without issues. That is why it is so important to create stable. As an administartor I can wait out the new and exciting until it becomes the tried and true. I feel that if any distribution has a good shot at taking the corporate desktop, it is Mandrake. There are just too many nice touches in this distribution that makes Linux easy. I had my 21 year old cousin here this weekend and taught her enough about 8.2 for her to feel comfortable and utilize for her needs (mostly gaim and galeon), but show her some optimizations that make her use easier. She picked it up very quickly and was so happy. However, while using it she quickly ran across some of the more obvious annoyances and bugs.... such as the mouse not releasing control to the keyboard while trying to cut and paste such that the paste went into the wrong section a few times. As small an annoyance as it seems compared to the massive bug splatting that has been going on these last few weeks, those little bugs are often the difference between people moving to Mandrake or not. The sad part is, if time was budgeted so that after all of the major bugs have been reconciled, that attention could be made to these smaller ones and cleaned them all up.... then you might be surprised at the momentum that could build arround this distribution. Corporations are desperately looking for a well thought out stable desktop os in Linux. This would save some of them thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all it would take is for one major support contract to resolve most of your money worries. ===== SI Reasoning [EMAIL PROTECTED] A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive. -FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/
