Re: RH and GNOME
> bma>On Mon, Jul 20, 1998 at 04:16:56PM -0500, Kysh Dragon wrote:
> bma>> Here's an experiment for the masses.. go to www.redhat.com and find
> bma>> information, within a few clicks, that RedHat is available for free
> bma>> download. Heck, find Linux referred to as a free operating system anywhere
> bma>> on the front page!
> bma>Nope. Unable to.
>
> See my previous post. I found a long detailed discussion in two
> clicks.
Which is entirely and completely irrelevent, and here is why..
The only part relevent is when they mention that Linux is a free operating
system. And they do it in such a way as to lead the reader to believe that
'free' Linux is inferior to 'RedHat' (They used the term `shrinkwrapped')
Linux.
But I'll also point out that I -never- click on 'about the company' when I
go to a webpage unless I'm seeking employment at that company. And a new
user didn't just 'hear about this company called RedHat'. They heard about
this `operating system called Linux'.
Let me put it this way.. I've had people ask me, seriously, if I would
pirate them a copy of Linux because they were under the impression after
seeing RedHat's website that Linux wasn't free. I immediately sent them to
Debian. One of them asked `Is this a warez site?'.
> bma>The one thing that pisses me off about RedHat is that they *do* give the
> bma>impressesion that there's only one distribution -- I've seen sigs on
> bma>linux-kernel that say:
> bma>
> bma>"For a REAL OS, use LINUX -- http://www.redhat.com/";
> bma>I don't care about promoting redhat, but damn that makes it sound like
> bma>it's the only one. Most of the developers here I've seen have something
> bma>like 'Debian/GNU Linux....http://www.debian.org/'
>
> Where is RedHat mentioned on Debian's web site ?
Debian doesn't sell its Linux. Debian has nothing to gain from hiding the
truth. RedHat does.
>
> This is our opening paragraph. Does it mention that Debian is one
> of many linux distributions ? (I don't want to change it, it's a good
> opening paragraph.)
>
> Debian is a free, or Open Source, operating system (OS)
> for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and
> utilities that make your computer run. At the core of an operating system
> is the kernel. The kernel is the most fundamental program on the computer,
> does all the basic housekeeping and lets you start other programs. Debian
> uses the Linux kernel, a free piece of software written by Linus Torvalds
> and supported by (probably over 1000) programmers worldwide. A large part
> of the basic tools that fill out the operating system come from GNU, which
> are also free. Of course, the thing that people want is software; tools to
> help them get what they want to do done, from editing documents to running
> a business to playing games to writing more software. Debian comes with
> over 1500 packages (precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for
> easy installation on your machine) -- all of it free.
I point you to the fact that in statement, intent and body this paragraph
has 'free' quite a few times and makes it -very- obvious that `debian' is
just a concatenation of free software. Do you think that Redhat would sell
very well if their motto was: `RedHat: The best concatenation of
completely free software you can buy for $40!'? -I- don't.
-Kysh
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