Church of Linux
Linux, or Loonix as some of my layman friends like to call it has been around for years now and with the emergence of Ubuntu we’re starting to see greater uptake in the consumer arena that has been ruled for so long by Windows. Microsoft has even gone as far as mentioning Linux as a threat to it’s business. However, much like the Christian Church, the Church of Linux has seen many schisms. Often they are completely non-confrontational and are motivated by good reasons but with the vast number of Linux distributions (Distrowatch lists 312 variations) it’s difficult to choose which one to try.
For the new user, Ubuntu is an obvious choice, but do they really want Ubuntu or Kubuntu? Until they have tried both they won’t know which is better for them.
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It doesn't seem like the blogger wants any comments
I don't whether he only approves comments in favour or if he just doesn't care if anyone uses the comment feature. Anyway, I post my comment here, not because it's important, but that it annoys me that I spent 5 minutes of my coffee break on this matter.
"If you use Distrowatch as a reference then your suggestion is already implemented. Check out the “Major Distributions” link, it will lead you to a selection of a few, each with a list of “Available editions” and “Alternatives” (in many cases spinoffs).
The rest of the argument is futile, and has been around for a long time. Basically you would need to kill the basic idea behind free software to achieve what you’re talking about. If all distributions are good at sending bug report upstream, the main development of software used will progress just as good.
The 312 distribution argument, changing only by current number, is totally out of context, except if you’re actually using embedded firewalls also as desktops, how that now would work. A lot of distributions are remasters to give better language support, and as such maybe also aimed at serving educational or other systems with well integrated operating system. Some are just personal projects made available to the public. Others are limited to work as jukeboxes or other multimedia boxes. Usually the massive number of distribution argument is used by supporters of proprietary software.
The biggest infrastructure to push Linux development ahead is anyway in the hands of a few big distributions, something that doesn’t change in either direction because of your “totalitarian” approach to free software. Just because you block some from using their freedom to fiddle with whatever they want, it won’t translate in 100 blocked developers equal to 100 more developers added to development of the chosen ones.
Linux is software made by users for users. Besides some crucial battles for user rights, which in a sense is a cross-platform concern, Linux evolves spontaneously. Is it really a good idea to out of sudden kill off spontaneity and expect all to join a corporate style of management?"