dist evals[1]

[der.hans]

moin, moin,

all this FUD[2] about the different dists prompts me to make a suggestion
I was thinking about.

How would we like to have a panel of PLUG members talk about several of
the different distributions? My idea is to have people sign up to cover a
specific dist. They take turns talking about the good/bad things about the
dist and maybe even give a company/dist[3] profile, e.g. cover the
apparent market the company is aiming for, cover other things the company
works on, especially things that benefit Open Source and Linux in general.

I figure everybody gets 10 to 15 minutes. That gives us time for 5 or 6
dists as well as a break and some discussion at the end.

Specifically I think we need to cover RedHat, debian and Mandrake as those
seem to be in common use amongst LUG members.

Just for the record, dists that don't have an x86 version, e.g. Yellow
Dog, should also be up for grabs if someone wants to cover them.

It might even be nice to have someone cover a *BSD, but I'd rather have a
*BSD night some time and have good coverage of it. Same with hurd if
people are interested and it's considered usable by at least a few people
:).

Anybody interested? I think this would make a good topic for Dec.

BTW, I specifically don't want dist reps. I'd rather LUG members tell us
what they think and what their experiences were. I do want dist vendors to
make presentations at PLUG, but one at a time :).

ciao,

der.hans

[1] My original thought was to call it Dist Warz or something, but the
current threads and Kevin's suggestions make me want to de-emphasize dist
bashing ( even if it's fun :) and instead foster something positive.
Comparisions can be made, but we should try to keep it friendly. *After*
the meeting we can all sidle over to a jello-wrestling bar and let people
fight it out ;-).
[2] Yes, I was one of the people spreading it.
[3] I'll use "company" after this, but not all dists are really companies,
e.g. debian. Debian as an org still has a focus and still has side
benefits like hurd, so it can still be covered properly.

-- 
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#  You can't handle the source! - der.hans