Fedora Coverstory in Linux Format
Chris Jones
jonesc at hep.phy.cam.ac.uk
Thu Nov 16 21:29:48 UTC 2006
> Benefit can be a bit hard to pin down, if nobody had done anything about
> saying no to proprietary, there would be none of the benefits from FOSS.
> Without open-only systems we might not have ended up with the great
> open video driver stuff from Intel, for example, that I am enjoying on
> this laptop. Canonical are going in the opposite direction, bundling
> ATI and nVidia binary drivers on the next version, I read, that is
> really going to validate and perpetuate the binary-only situation there
> and is that really a benefit in the end?
Probably not. But also, I suspect it isn't the real issue.
Personally, I have always thought comparisons between linux distros rather
pointless.
Ubuntu is always going to be easier on newbies to linux than Fedora given its
approach to non OSS stuff. A newbie installing Ubuntu is probably going to
have an easier ride, and thus stuck with linux, than someone trying out
Fedora.
This is not a bad thing. If someone trying out Ubuntu realises that linux is a
good desktop solution that that can only be positive. One more Ubuntu user
might not be more more Fedora user but is one less windoz user :)
Similarly, if such a user whilst learning about linux through ubuntu learns
about Fedora and what they stand for, and decides to to support that all the
better. A lot of the technology ubuntu uses (such as udev, selinux), was
first tried out in fedora. This is a good thing.
cheers Chris
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