On Fri January 26 2007, Ric Moore wrote: > Let us all know how it goes, they came onto the scene with a pile of > press and then seemed to fade out there for awhile. The LSB has a pile > of great aims and goals that could bring about a serious threat to the > Windoze World. I personally believe Fedora and RH will bring these > improvements into a state of being. I'm looking forward to it. Ric Booted in to the live-CD - got to the login screen and nothing worked. Tried to find some info in the release notes, the download page, etc... Not so auspicious... Didn't spend too much time on it, so I could have missed something. If you'd like to try a real nice distro that is Fedora Core 6 based, and is consolidating the repos into one big repo with all packages checked for consistency and dependencies before they get in, you might want to check out Jeff Moe's blag - he includes packages from Fedora Core, Fedora Extras, freshrpms, Dries, ATrpms, livna, Planet CCRMA, plus his "own special brews" This is Fedora Core with a special tilt towards the content creation community - he has made an attempt to build most of the graphics, video editing, audio, and the like packages for Fedora, some of which are not so readily available such as Lives and Jahshaka. He follows the same philosophy as Fedora as regards no "non-free" software, but all the usual channels for such still work. It's a nice Fedora derivative that improves some areas that may be of interest to some special interests... Getting back to the subject of this thread - IT behemoths have short life spans - we, as humans, tend to think in the now, but step back a few steps and one can think of many seemingly unchallengeable giants that have fallen. Time will tell, but as alternatives become more and more viable, I think M$ silly tactics such as the one referred in the link just serve to point to their vulnerability. I use their product every day - the business that pays my keep writes software to enhance or make up for deficiencies in MS - I don't participate in the MS bashing that rages endlessly - I even think their product is quite good in many respects, but, the corporate culture of MS, and their greed, and the reprehensible tactics they have often employed towards their competition, are what I object to. They're technology is also intrinsically inferior, for those reasons, in my view, and Linux has them beat in many areas. I think Linux will continue to mature because it has a superior development model, safe-computing model, and a much more likable "non-corporate" culture - when ease-of-installation/ease-of-use/technological-parity issues narrow a bit more, MS is going to find itself in deep-kimchee (sp?), caused by their own arrogance/greed. Linux will succeed or fail based in part on its own merits, but, it also will depend on the success of the model. There's no participating in MS products - you pay, you use, you complain - that's pretty much it. Linux depends on its users' participation - constructive criticism is one thing, but endless bitching about problems from a distance, without participation in the process of development, on whatever level, is what can undermine it. OK - what made me climb on that soapbox???? -- Claude Jones Brunswick, MD, USA
