RedHat, Fedora future?

[Tim Kossack]

Am So, den 08.02.2004 schrieb Peter Boy um 03:09:
> Am So, den 08.02.2004 schrieb Tim Kossack um 00:44:
> > 1. sun (us - based company) ships with all the other plugs, means media
> > player, java, mp3 (not sure about flash)
> > http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/index.html
> > they also don't seem to have that "oss-compliance-problem" that red hat
> > seems to have: 
> 
> Sun is a per seat licence and you are not allowed to freely redistribute
> it as with fedora. And you can not freely download the sources and
> redistribute it (after replacing all RH branding stuff) as with RHEL. So
> licensing issues are quit different. Again: apples and peaches

wrong. sun offers jds either per seat or per user. besides (for the 10th
time) reg. plugs, i was talking about the commercial desktops of red
hat. besides, what has all this to do with what this thread is all about
(usability) - a customer could care less if he's free to redistribute
rhel under certain terms, because he wants to simply _use_ that stuff,
and easily and with the least hassle.
but even if that would be important for some customers, it a) is not for
others and b) it's not an excuse to have poorer usability/plugs that the
comp.

> > > Some plugins you are talking about (e.g. mp3) are rarely essential
> > > ingredients of a commercial desktop. Others are available (e.g. Java).
> > 
> > again - sun, lindows, mandrake and partly suse are strongly disagreeing
> > with you (and red hat).
> 
> Doesn't matter. Proof of the pudding is in the eating: How many
> enterprises will but RHEL, how many Lindows, how many .... 

sun has sold how many jds to china again (millions)?! 
and yes, i'm really interested who will make (esp. compared to his size)
more inroads into the corporate desktop market, especially into small to
midsize companies...

> > > > my impression is basically that red hat hasn't at all understood (or
> > > > needs to show it yet that they have) what makes a really polished
> > > > desktop distribution. i don't make any difference between a good desktop
> > > > for home use and a good desktop for businesses. neither does market
> > > > leader microsoft. ....
> > > Hm, MS offers a XP home and a XP Pro
> > 
> > i'm curious -what are the differences between xp home and xp pro besides
> > that one is up to dual-cpu and the other just for single cpu, and
> > especially reg. plugs and usability?
> 
> Don't know. But obviously MS does differentiate between home and
> corporate (may be they are wrong in the details, but they see a
> difference)

ok, to clear that up ( i wonder why this misunderstanding after all this
comes up in the first place, but anyways): 
when i said that i don't see any differences between corporate and home
desktop, i of course meant that in terms of usability/plugs _from the
user's perpective_ (because this was what this thread was and is all
about), because the argument of you (or red hat for that matter) goes as
follows: "in corporate environments, a max. ease-of-use as well as a
complete suite of plugins you need every day is not as important as at
the desktop at home." 
i say, it might be that the hurdles in the corporate environment are
lower in this respect which means that, if linux has still some
usability flaws which would hinder it's use on the home desktop
(grandma, mum, dad etc.), it could be nevertheless of interest for the
corporate market. so far, so good. 
but the ultimate goal should be that the desktop for the corporate use
should be as easy to use and offering the same basic functionality as
the desktop at home, because companies don't want to spend more on
training and administration costs as is absolutely necessary. 
besides, they want a maximum of functionality (or, for heaven's sake, at
least the _choice_ between a max. of officially supported options -
whether to install this or that plug or not etc.). and if i see (based
on reviews, product information and partly my own experience) that the
competition offers far more plugs, and puts more thoughts into
ease-of-use, polishing than red hat does (therefore prooving that more
of all that _is_ possible), then the argument about lower hurdles in the
corporate doesn't cut it in my (as well as the customers) eyes any more.

i didn't (and don't) say that corporate and home-desktops are _totally_
identical (like some tools/functionlity that just makes sense in
networks, certain admin tools for remote access to the various desktops
, underlying code etc.), but just in terms of overall usability and
plugs there's (or should be) none.
and that was that ms-comparison (and this thread) was all about.
has my point (after the 12. or so email) _finally_ become clear once and
for all - i _really_ hope so!

> > > > getting in danger to sound circular, a good desktop is a good desktop
> > > > because it's a good overall desktop.
> > > 
> > > You need a good "desktop basic infrastructure", which may be the same
> > > for home and corporate usage (but populated with different pieces). As I
> > > argued in my previous post, Red Hat is the one who heavily invested in
> > > development of such a "desktop basic infrastructure" (using existent OSS
> > > components and combining them in a new way). And they are the only one
> > > of the big Linux distributors (but I don't know Lindows)
> > 
> > i don't know what you exactly mean by "desktop basic infrastructure". if
> > we both mean the same, i' d say that suse, sun, ximian are at least as
> > heavily involved in developing the "d.b.i"-parts as red hat is. also,
> > they all rely on those same projects as core for their desktop
> > offerings  - can't see red hat doing anything "new" or different here!
> 
> have a look at freedesktop.org and its history. RH did a lot of
> development to integrate gnome's and kde's  DE  (e.g. menu
> infrastructure)

ah ok, you meant freedesktop.org
nevertheless, doing work breaking new grounds is no excuse for lack of
polish or plugs on the other end.

> > as far as usability and plugs are concerned, i already stated that for
> > the life of me i can't figure out why there should be any difference
> > between home and corporate usage (neither do microsoft, sun, lindows,
> > mandrake and to a lesser extent suse), and that i regard that
> > "difference" an artificial one, a poor excuse for poor usability (or
> > lack of plugs).
> 
> I don't like my staff watching dvds and playing games while they should
> get their work done. Therefore I don't care wether xine, mp3, ... is
> included or not (better not :-) )

your employees don't have any breaks at all, where they want to surf,
listening to music etc.?
also, many companies today have more and more people with laptops, or
people working at home with a pc of the company. am i supposed to think
that they have to have 2 os's installed on those, meant one for home and
one for work...? 
so, whatever you and red hat think about it: choice out of the box is
_good_, and not _bad_ (s.a.)

> > > They try to extend the KDE menue and you
> > > find a SuSE menue inside a (hidden) KDE menue, but the menue editor
> > > shows you the kde menue first, menue entries are doubled, they install a
> > > lot of software which does not show up in the menue, the don't obey
> > > different context (e.g. the configuration menue entry in their Gnome
> > > menue opens the Kde configuration).  And there are many more examples of
> > > the un-usability of the SuSE desktop (or Mandrake - not so bad as SuSE).
> > 
> > just because the other distros might no be perfect, it doesn't mean that they 
> > not at least having recognized how important usability/plugs are,
> 
> But they don't take action. RH did by developing the before mentioned
> things.

s.a.

> > > In short: I can't see any proof for your theses that SuSE (or others)
> > > have a better polished desktop (desktop - not quantity of delivered
> > > software)
> > 
> > look - leaving this plugin issue aside (which, again, _does_ make a huge
> > difference) - they're tons of reviews out there which are outlining the
> > pros and cons of the various desktops. my impression is that red hat's
> > desktop offerings (up2 red hat 9, rhpw seems not to be much different
> > reg. usability - maybe partly in plugs) are  - in terms of overall
> > desktop experience - _last_, and that the gap is widening, not closing.
> 
> Unfortunately I don't know those tons of reviews. Again, the tons
> doesn't matter, but the arguments.

ok, leaving aside the question if whether there are those advantages are
real (my opinion) or are just perceived and don't exist (your opinion),
red hat as problem anyway. because they sell a product, and from a
customers perspective, perception plays a very important role. and the
perception is that red hat sells it's server os as desktop, and that
other companies have understood that a good server doesn't make
automatically a good desktop, and therefore act accordingly.
so look at it from whatever standpoint, it doesn't change the fact that
red hat a problem (or deficit) here.

> I see a lot of ridiculous arguments out there. All of those are looking
> for "the best desktop", but don't realize that their target does not
> exist and will never do. There is no "best desktop" but only a best
> desktop for a specified purpose.

s.a.

> > (can't get sun for free)
> Do you see the difference by yourself?

no (s.a.)

> >  over the next few weeks and
> > post the findings. 
> Good idea, looking forward to it.
> 
> > can't see the contradiction you seem to see here, to the contrary, both
> > "feature richness" as well as "integration" are two requirements to
> > achieve good usability.
> But can't being achived at the same time (look at SuSE). Or at least
> it's very expensive and time consuming.

again, sun, lindows, mandrake, xandros etc. don't agree with you. 

> As I see RH's recent decisions they abandoned the idea of a "general
> purpose distribution" (which you are still looking for) and produce two
> distributions for two different and specialized types of users. These
> two type doesn't cover the whole range of possible users, leaving room
> for other distros to find their user base.

if you mean by the 2 products fedora (which is a project, not a product
- red hat puts the emphasis on that, not me) and rhws, they clearly are
_not_ targeting "the whole range of possible users", but just the rel.
small group of technically skilled workers (that's why it is called ws,
and not desktop), and the geeks (fedora), basically leaving 90% of the
market to others. and i still wonder why.