[Leaplist] Another Vixta ??

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Fri, 2008-02-22 at 18:48 -0800, Ram K. Singh wrote:
> Why Fedora 8 ? Any particular advantage? 

Fedora, like Debian (as well as Red Hat Linux before Fedora), has no
indemnification issues.  That's why they are popular for off-shoot
distros like the Creative Commons, Vixta, etc...  Basing a distro on
Debian or Fedora avoids a lot of legal issues.

Fedora, unlike Debian, but like Red Hat Linux before Fedora, tends to
adopt major, new, core technologies every 2-4 releases.  Red Hat
typically does this after a Red Hat Enterprise Linux release has been
released.  The idea is that over the next 1-2 years, these new
technologies will be accepted and accommodated.

Changes in major core technologies are disruptive.  It doesn't matter
how integrated and stable Red Hat and the community makes them in a
Fedora release.  People tend to complain when 3rd party software won't
build or run on them, regardless of the quality of the included
software.  That's what takes 2-4 releases to "iron out."

But make no mistake.  Virtually every technology Red Hat has adopted,
that many people screamed bloody murder about "breakage," has been
adopted in virtually every distro.  The few technologies that have not
have either died off or had little development in comparison.
Ironically, some people try to say "Red Hat adopts too early," but the
reality is, it has to be adopted early by someone for everyone else to
start accommodating it.

Stability has never been the issue, only compatibility.  Ironically,
early adoption by Red Hat has a nice, positive trade-off.  Their distros
have some of the greatest backward compatibility and longest, proven
features.  Most distros give that direct thumbs up when they finally
adopt something Red Hat has spent the last 2-3 years helping 3rd parties
accommodate, and we all benefit.





-- 
Bryan J  Smith              Professional, Technical Annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org  http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
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           Fission Power:  An Inconvenient Solution