On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Frankie wrote:
<snip>
> OK, so the two leading distros are redhat and debian. debian, on the one
> hand, is run as a voluntary organisation etc, whereas redhat is (or is going
> the way of) a corporation, in the sense that it employs programmers, is very
> far ahead of any of the competition and (arguably although I think)
> sacrifices reliability over commercial factors. (eg rushing distros to get
> them out to coincide with the marketers strategy).
> I know that redhat have done a good job in promoting linux for the masses
> etc, but does redhat seem like the next MS to you?
<snip>
I agree with much of what you say, but I would point out that Red Hat
seems to be a good citizen - they pay programmers to write GPL (I think)
software so at least they give something back. However, I am troubled
by their dominant postion.
The reason for their position as I see it are:
1. You can buy it at computer stores. Perhaps some company can
box a Debian CD, include a book, and distribute it to computer stores.
2. If IBM or whoever want to talk about installing and supporting
Linux they can pick up the phone and call Red Hat. They
can sign a contract with Red Hat for support. Can they
do the same for Debian?
3. Red Hat has the reputation of being the easiest distribution
to install and get started with. I'm not sure it's true, but that's
the perception. What can Debian do?
If I'm right and Debian addresses the above points, Debian may gain
"market share". It's going to be tough because once IBM, etc, sign
up with Red Hat, it's going to be hard for them to change.
My two cents worth
King Lee
