[Leaplist] good read -- a few good men--er, reads--er, distros--er, whatev--er

[Bryan J. Smith]

Well, first off, I'm a biased advocate of Debian and Fedora
(package-distro wise, I won't touch source-rebuild/management systems
like Gentoo, which I also utilize for many purposes).  The main reason I
run Fedora instead of Debian is because I'm the long-time benefactor of
monetary income due to knowing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and
related solutions built around it.  But both provide very sound, 100%
legally redistributable distros with very good integration and
regression tested releases (I'm not comparing or equating Debian and
Fedora against/with each other with that statement -- just that both
distro developments/lineages have their respective integration/ression
testing to a "known degree" by users of both, respectively).

So, secondly, I personally and professionally run the "uncool" Fedora
distro.  Fedora is most "uncool" because, like Debian, it refuses to
ship a lot of software and support with clear IP and related
indemnification issues.  As even this author got _dead_wrong_,
_legally_, there are clear IP and related indemnification issues
_outside_ the US as well.  This includes MP3 patent issuance and
enforcement in various EU nations.  The author has proliferated this
falsehood, to the detriment of many professionals, once again, like many
others.

Third, Fedora is also "uncool" because it has a contemporary lineage of
23 (and counting) regression avoiding releases that span a dozen years
with almost always 6-7 months with few exceptions (everything is within
5, never more than 9).  Debian is also very "uncool" for the same, and
many other distros based on Debian then try to make the _conflicting_
arguments that are both "as stable" as Debian while being
"newer/developed faster" than Debian (WTF?).

Fourth, Fedora also feeds the ultimately "uncool" Red Hat Enterprise
Linux (RHEL) distro, which is designed for the ultimate in regression
elimination and maximum ABI/API compatibility.  Any anything feeding,
sponsored and, especially, controlled by Red Hat, a "greedy," publicly
traded company, is definitely "uncool."

So, lastly, this also leads to the relabeling of "cool" things in, often
also "invented by" Canonical for Ubuntu -- from libvirt to Network
Manager -- from their original "uncool" and "first distro debut" (even
if at the same version shipped only later by Canonical in Ubuntu)
versions in Fedora.  That's why I'm "uncool" and not a "community
member," because I don't talk, use or work with "cool" distributions.

-- Bryan

P.S.  Wireless LAN (WLAN) has an additional constraint placed on it by
the FCC that has resulted in the common "binary object" firmware being
loaded by even a GPL driver.  I'm not just talking NDIS, I'm talking
about Broadcom, Intel and many other WLAN MACs actually including a
"binary object" -- the firmware or other shared byte code -- that
contains PHY/wireless RX/TX commands related to frequencies that cannot
be tuned or otherwise open, by mandate of the FCC (after the related
issues with the PRiSM driver in Linux allowing such in the past).

That's why most WLAN approaches in Linux just end up being
"NDISWrapper," because it's already a PITA to deal with the binary
objects as the entire driver can't be open source.



-- 
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