Red Hat Desktop Integration

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 17:21:26 -0400

Well said.  I don't think that reasoned "bashing" of the embrace and extend or
lock-in practices is out of place.  It is after all one of the main reasons to
move to Free Software, the freedom.

We all must work to make Linux and GNU and Free Software and Open Source "just
work" so that the freedom is pervasive, instead of ubiquitous lock-in.  It is
an uphill (up cliff?) battle because of the entrenched proprietary "standards"
that have to be over come.  Bridges in the form of Free tools that can play
prorprietary format games are needed to cross the gap to the land of Free
Software.

Red Hat makes a unified desktop and this makes them like Microsoft?  Nope. 
It's still Free Software and it adds to the choices.  It's not "embrace and
extend" it's "change and release", exactly what the GPL is intended to allow
and promote.

Alan

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 13:51:05 -0700 Kyle Faber <kyle@emr.net> wrote:
> 	Interesting that this statement would be on
> the list when there are still a 
> few kicks left in the "OE6 doesn't handle
> signatures" debate of the last few 
> days.  The main complaint in that thread was
> that because Microsoft 
> "invented" their own standards and didn't go
> with someone else's, they were 
> bad.  Now Red Hat wants to standardize a
> desktop, help everyone work well 
> together, and the first in line to bash our
> "commercial" leader is ... 
> *ominous drum roll* the linux community itself.
> 
> 
> 	Standards are not bad.  Closed standards are
> an oxymoron.  The thing here 
> with Red Hat is this: you have a choice.  If
> you don't like having 
> cross-library compatibility, and out of the box
> support for as much as they 
> can cram into that little $60 box, don't
> support the distribution.  I get 
> this feeling that half of the innovation in the
> Linux market (and lets face 
> it, making things 'dummie-easy' when it comes
> to Linux is an innovation) 
> seems to be dealt with based on the whether or
> not Microsoft has been 
> successful in that particular arena.  If they
> have, then the "innovator" is 
> said to be in league with those damned dirty
> apes of hell, "and they might as 
> well be MS Linux" and only a public sacrifice
> upon the Altar of Linus will 
> make them clean in our eyes again.  
> 
> 	If instead it is an area where Microsoft has
> tried and failed, then they are 
> the crowned princes and shall be lauded in the
> Halls of Binary for at least a 
> commercial break, until something better comes
> along.
> 
> 	And watch out if its something Microsoft
> hasn't tried yet, that set of 
> developers could only akin to gods themselves
> for all the praise they will 
> get.   Perhaps until someone thinks of a
> connection between them and the 
> horrible beast of the Northwest.
> 
> 	The knee-jerk reaction to hating Microsoft is
> lame at best, and damaging at 
> the worst.  The majority of people in this
> country (and yes I am being 
> US-centric here, because its the only culture I
> can speak for)  want their 
> computer to just WORK!  If they wanted it to be
> hard, they would go down to 
> the basement bin and fish out Redhat 2.0 and no
> one would ever upgrade except 
> with code they wrote themselves.  WRONG! 
> People hate having to reboot all 
> the time, but they hate even more not being
> able to get ANYTHING done between 
> those reboots, even more frustratingly if those
> reboots are weeks apart.  
> 
> 	OpenOffice is great for this, but how many
> times have we heard about the 
> "waste of time supporting .Doc format."  If you
> are the new kid on the block 
> you have to learn the rules to all the other
> kid's games or they will kick 
> your ass and call you a dork.  .doc is how they
> play baseball on this block, 
> ladies and gentlemen.
> 
> 	Evolution is great for this.  Search your
> email logs or slashdot for "Ximian 
> Connector is ANTI-OPENSOURCE!!!"  Exchange is
> how they play Hopscotch on this 
> block, better learn the rules.
> 
> 	Samba is great for this.  How many gigabytes
> of bandwidth have been wasted on 
> "Why are you using Samba, just switch to Linux
> and use NFS, its works 
> better."  Samba is how you play hide-and-seek
> here, folks.
> 
> 	Learn all the rules, play all their games. 
> Then, after you know all the 
> games they play, you can raise you hand and say
> "since I am such a good 
> person, and I know all the rules to your games,
> let me introduce you to my 
> new game.  Do I rock or what?"  Then when they
> all believe that you can make 
> up great new games, you tell them about how all
> their games suck and you have 
> them wrapped around your little finger.
> 
> 	Unfortunately, I will get blasted as a MS
> supporter and Linux hater because 
> making everyone think that your games are the
> coolest is "such a M$ thing to 
> do", I might as well call myself "Kyle Gates"
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Kyle Faber