Posted on 01/05/2009 7:25:15 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Happy New Year and welcome to this year's first issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Perhaps a good way of starting the year is with a look at the 17-year old history of Linux and Linux distributions - from the modest first release of "it won't be as big as GNU" to today's dominance of the free operating system in server rooms, if not yet on the desktop.
(Excerpt) Read more at distrowatch.com ...
fyi
Now one is needed to illustrate all of the different packaging schemes,.....
Now if one were to invest the total effort represented by that chart, in perhaps two or three distros instead of scores...
Understand, my heart has always been with the open-source community (since my 1976 KIM-1 days). I'm just sayin'... open-source shouldn't necessarily preclude having a coherent business and development model. That chart is awful damn diffuse.
Let's just say that as much as I admire and respect the diversity of the Linux distros (and have used at least half a dozen), that chart really shows why the Microsoft and Apple folks look at Linux as a sort of joke, business-wise.
That said, Linux has been giving the close-source folks a good run for their money for years.
Wouldn’t that be like Central Planning?
Yes, and therein lies the rub.
Hell, a lot of Linux developers view RedHat as Big Brother. ;-)
It's all relative.
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