Why I use Debian. Was Re: [plug] Mandrake - printing

[John Summerfield]

> John Summerfield wrote:
> > > Then I reiterate: Anything distribution-specific is not a "killer app.".
> > > It is either poorly programmed or ridiculously restricted by license.
> > 
> > Greg
> > You are entitled to your views,  but have the grace to recognise they are
> > not held by others as universal truths.
> > Many people have no problem using commercial products, and for some
> > purposes there is no satisfactory alternative. DB/2 and Oracle are both
> > high-end RDMSs, there is no free alternative. If you want a
> > high-performance database amounting to terabytes of data, postgresql is
> > not a choice.
> 
> They may not be "universal truths" but they still largely appear to be
> very valid and accurate statements.  A piece of software that runs only

I said 'ships with' or 'xxxLinux includes.' I especially did not say 'runs 
only on.'

> on one distribution would be mostly a waste of time since only users of
> that distribution could take advantage of it.  A killer app?  Not
> really... if the app ran only on one system then it would be quickly
> ported to the others or a free(er) alternative would be written. 
> Furthermore, if the software only ran on one distribution (considering
> that most distributions share more similarities than they do
> differences), then it would have to be remarkably badly written in order
> to "achieve" this feat of incompatibility.  Greg's comment about a
> "ridiculously restricted license" also seems valid given that Linux is
> all about free software and freedom since a program licensed to only one
> distribution would almost certainly be soundly rejected by the GNU/Linux
> community.
> 
> On the other hand, your points concerning high-end databases seem to
> make no sense whatsoever.  In fact, your example of Oracle only
> validates Greg's point of view!  Oracle, as the most popular DBMS in
> general, is destined to be the most popular DBMS on Linux.  Should they
> have written it to only run on one distribution then they would have
> been drastically limiting their own success and likely other database

The presumed fact of it being shipped with xxxLinux says nothing at all 
about its ability to run on yyyLinux (except that it may have been 
validated on xxxLinux and not on yyyLinux). Doubtless someone would 
install it on yyyLinxu and mention that it 'works great.'

> manufacturers would have stepped in to exploit the oppportunity.  While
> you seem to like to dimiss other people's points of view with an
> arrogant, casual carelessness, perhaps you should consider the substance
> of what they are saying more closely first before doing so in future. 
> Or, at the very least, provide some sensible evidence or reasoning in
> return.

Christian
In years to come, you will blush at this twaddle.

First, I was referring to packaging; a reason to select one distro over 
another is what's in the package. If I really want Oracle, and xxxLinux 
ships with Oracle, then there is a reason to prefer xxxLinux over yyyLinux.

Carrying on about the package only running on one distro is a lot of 
nonsense. No software that I know of will only run on one distro, tho I 
know of some that ae designed to install more readily on Red Hat Linux, 
and I know of some that require glibc 2.1 and so won't run on Red Hat 
Linux. However, those packages can be installed on other distroes, and 
I've even head of Viavoice SDK being installed on Debian.

Packaging is a convenience. Red Hat Linux 6 shipped with VV SDK. Getting 
RHL plus VV was more convenient than getting Debian and downloading VV.

You , Christian, are entitled to apply any principles you like in choosing 
your software; I've never said or implied anything to the contrary.

You you must learn is this. Other people are entitled to choose their 
software according to their own principles. If it's done according to the 
law of the land, nobody has ground for complaint. If I want to use Oracle 
or StarOffice or WordPerfect or some commercial firewall software, I may 
solicit advice, and you could reasonably suggest alternatives, but in the 
end it's my choice. If I choose a distribution because it contains 
software I want to use, then it's a rational choice. It would not be 
rational (by my principles) to choose a distro that contains none of them 
and go to additional trouble and maybe expense to get the other bits & 
pieces,

-- 
Cheers
John Summerfield
http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
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