First I'd like to thank all respondents to my "Coupla quick questions..." message, I've a much better handle on those things now :-).
I was really surprised to learn that HP's Firemonkey or whatever it is was a Red Hat specific product. I worked as a contractor at HP a while back and got to know a little about the internal Linux community there. I was aware of at least two Debian developers that were active on the internal Linux newsgroup. Of course, management probably didn't bother to get input from these people; I'm sure they instead hired an outside Linux "consultant" who assured them that Red Hat was the way to go and that all future Linux products would conform to Red Hat's "standards". I know a couple of these guys here that know even less about Linux than I do but are able to sound like experts. Unfortunately, they became "consultants" by going to CompUSA, picking up a box full of "Red Hat", installing a couple of times and learning enough buzzwords to impress the clueless. Life really is like a Dilbert cartoon isn't it? Anyway, the point is - IMHO there _is_ a danger in Red Hat becoming dominant; not on technical merit but by increasing "mindshare". Is this not how Microsoft became dominant? Microsoft has rarely been technically superior but has been able to dominate most markets because of "mindshare". I'm not saying that Red Hat is behaving like Microsoft but "power corrupts" and if|when they dominate the Linux market(85%+) things may change. Maybe I'm still bitter over the whole Geoworks Ensemble thing ;-). Thanks for everything, Gary Singleton (sorry for the incoherency, need sleep) _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
