Hello all,
I also am thankfull for trying to get Debian "official status":
After my rant a couple of days ago on the "Debian going corporate
issue", I went forth to
research and educate myself on the Linux community as a whole. I found
that as I had thought
but not confirmed, almost all of those points ("real" tech support,
packaging assistance, logo certification etc..) are being addressed by
Linux projects regardless of distribution by advocates like FSF and
SPI-Inc. Commercial dist.s are doing their own organizational stuff.
It is not a bad thing to have duplication of effort since the Debian
community benefits from others putting $$$ into companies that make
products that we can use. My employer will buy
licenses of things that I will use free versions of and we share what
commercial support we
get and the help I get from this list.
My boss was impressed with the technical aspects of Debian but went
RedHat then SuSE
because he just felt like he had to have "official CD's". I used his
RedHat machine and
CD Writer to burn my own Official Debian CD's the same day he bought
SuSE. This ties into
Christian Lavoie's comment that, "companies like to talk to companies".
A lot of people are
biased towards what has the market share and is in the press. I rather
like the thought that
we get the best of both worlds, as a poor student I cannot afford to put
up the money for
licensed packaged products. But if the products are to stay around and
add strength to the linux growth someone has to pay. Why not the folks
how are not aware how to install a static binary. I will have to admit
that I get a little annoyed with untar -> compile installations. ;-)
By my earlier message I probably left many with the impression that I
think Debian should be more commercial. In fact the opposite is true.
I was just outlining what it would take and how to do it without a total
sell out in morality. I like Debian the way it is and wonder if there
isn't an "internal use only "Windows NT" that only MS Developers know
about and use
that is technically better, more stable and impervious to the dreams of
marketing departments. Also, there is no greater joy than to e-mail
commercial tech support that could not find asolution, with an answer
that showed up on this list. Free Linux support RULES!!
--
-- We're all lab animals, the mazes are just bigger! --
--
Danny R. Gray
Research Technician
Department of Pathology
UNC-CH School of Medicine
