[NTLUG:Discuss] My latest Red Hat rant

[Christopher Cox]

I probably should call most of my issues ... Lennart rants... but no matter.

Red Hat wants ALL Linux distros to be pretty much the SAME.  Not merely the 
kernel, but the surrounding stuff as well.  Why?  Less to maintain and less pain 
for customers.  This coming from a company that has ORDERS of magnitude more 
dollars and personnel maintaining their own distribution.  Greed can be a 
vicious cycle folks!

Anyhow.. I think people would be AMAZED by the amount of diversity there is 
currently across Linux distros with regards to package choices that effectively 
do the same sorts of things... but where a different champion (coder or coders) 
was chosen.  There's nothing bad about that necessarily.  However, if the whole 
world is looking for "the Highlander" last standing... then Red Hat certainly 
has a point... and of course, you know who the last one has to be.

What I'm saying is that "the Highlander" stance, while it sounds good for 
business, it's very bad for FOSS in general (very very bad).  I mean, with that 
kind of argument, "the Highlander" approach could just as easily be something 
from Oracle... or even Microsoft if taken to a broader scope (right?).

I think diversity is wonderful.  And I think the fact that we CAN choose 
distributions based on their differences is what we truly want in FOSS.  What I 
don't want to see is every distro chopping their own heads off because they buy 
into "the Highlander" mentality... that's just an easy way of saying, there 
truly can only be one Linux distro.

With that said... with diversity there can come some problems.  When simple 
underlying frameworks are radically changed... because they "don't matter"... 
and I say that because things that "do matter" often try to follow some type of 
industry recognized standard or even just a pattern... but when we rock the boat 
of something internal because it suits our specific needs or the corporations 
driving us and that "don't matter" change forces CHANGE throughout the whole 
ecosystem, because the folks that made the "don't matter" change... well.. they 
just happen to matter to a lot of folks... sigh...

I know that was confusing.. my point is... we need to be careful about 
championing personalities rather than technology...   In a broader argument I 
call this the battle between pseudo science vs. science (where we have exchanged 
the scientific method for trusting our favorite scientists instead).

It's complicated.  The good news is that there really can't be "the Highlander", 
not matter how hard some try... but still it's a danger sign that people are 
trying (IMHO).... today's interesting thread read:

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-May/167028.html