[lug] "red hat - the new redmond?" comment from mainstream online media

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 04:19:54AM -0700, bill ehlert wrote:
>"There is growing concern in the Linux community that industry-leader
>Red Hat will become the 'Microsoft of the Linux world.'"

What are you trying to say?  People seem to like to call Red Hat the
"Microsoft of Linux", for reasons that honestly escape me.

Quite frankly, SuSE resembles Microsoft more than Red Hat, at least in the
ways I consider to be bad...  Red Hat participates in the Open Source
community -- they provide the source for *ALL* the stuff on the CDs you
get, under a license that allows you as the user to modify it.  That's one
of the reasons that Red Hat is such a popular system to use as a basis.

SuSE has a closed installer specifically to *KEEP* others from being able
to create a SuSE-based distribution.

Microsoft is bad because as users we can't modify, improve, or learn from
their system.  They use things like file format changes to lock users in to
continued upgrades and their proprietary software.

Red Hat has, if anything, moved *AWAY* from proprietary software -- their
boxed sets no longer include demo or license restricted software.

So, I just don't see that it's happening.  The only thing I see is people
trying to sensationalize the popularity of Red Hat.

Sean
-- 
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Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
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