The Convenient Fiction of Distributions, Dec 01, 2007

I am increasingly convinced all of the arguments between Linux distributions are going to become moot very soon. If they aren't there already.

I was taking a walk with my wife the other day, talking about all the kooky-nuttiness that is the Linux and Open Source world sometimes. I think I was harping on a certain company in Washington State and their recent "attempts" to "open source" some of their code.

For quite a few pundits out there, the fact that there are so many Linux distributions is a bit troubling to them. I am not sure why this argument keeps coming up, but it goes something like this: there are X Linux distros out there, which is too many to choose from for users, and creates a strain on developer resources.

... the best argument can be made: "when Person on the Street can use Linux out of the box, then Linux will be mainstream."

If you are a Linux user with one of these cards, unless your software can work with this DRM protection scheme, you won't be able to enjoy the full benefits of HD content.

Boy, there's nothing like sitting down to your computer with a nice cup of tea, opening your browser and finding out that you're "morally bankrupt." Oh, sorry, my mistake. That's Red Hat and "a number of other Linux distros." I'm part of the "technical media who ignores the fact that your freedoms go down the tank by making these compromises."

Freespire will be a Debian-based, community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, Carmony outlined, in much the same way as Fedora Core and openSUSE relate to their parent commercial distros, Red Hat Linux and SUSE Linux, respectively.

If you are a LUG and are contemplating holding a regional show, such as SCALE, the Ohio LinuxFest, or NorthwestFest, I urge you to examine the benefits of these shows and others like them. I believe in the long run they will be very advantageous for the Linux operating system.

... according to CEO François Bancilhon, Mandriva is prepared to take its product line straight to Red Hat and Novell, in whatever arena the US companies care to compete--including, Bancilhon emphasized, right in their back yard.

It is open knowledge that Novell, the company that roared into the open source arena by purchasing Ximian and SUSE in 2003, has been progressing towards migrating their own internal desktops and servers to a pure-Linux play. Or, at least, as pure Linux as possible.

The evolution of Linux in the embedded space has taken another big step forward with the recent release of MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 4.0.

Weeks after announcing a second quarter loss, Novell is mulling significant staff cutbacks, likely in its European offices, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Linus then went on to explain how, in his view, OSDL functions.

"No, you should think of OSDL as two different kinds of entities (and first off, you should realize that I do not officially speak "for" OSDL in any form what-so-ever--I'm a developer, and that, and only that, is my job):

"A go-between and contact point for different companies. Neutral ground, in other words, for companies to try to figure out what their common needs are, and how to document them as a guide for developers. This is the side of OSDL that does things like the DCL drafts, but it also ends up doing a lot of "unofficial" networking between companies that all have slightly different needs and wishes. And that's the side that I'm not really affiliated with, although it's useful to me too: the documents end up being a somewhat more organized way of knowing what different people end up actually wanting.