Promising Linux development? No.

ZDNet |UK| – News – Story – Linux vendors move to standard platform

Four Linux distributors – Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva – are to back a standard software distribution, as a way of encouraging application development and battling the dominant position of Red Hat

This is an exciting development! I have Mandrake on my machine and so I can now read this stuff and at least have some grasp – none of it easy without a background in IT etc. Just downloaded & printed the white paper off the http://www.unitedlinux.com site. The implications of that will be interesting.

The thing is that once the UnitedLinux is there it is still free. Red Hat, anyone can use it. It takes a bit of getting your head around!

Update Monday, 3, June

RMS has called for people not to support it. It is driven by the Ransom Love who is not pro free software. They will not be distributing the binaries on their CDs. Selling the trademark is the business model. What seemed promising now does not.

Linux & community

The Community of Linux

“Anyway, I wanted to come back to the idea of Linux. It is a careful phrase, ‘the idea of Linux’. It occurred to me this morning, as I was reading the technology news and reflecting on the tasks of the day, (I’m not exactly sure how, but that is an interesting side question) that Linux and the whole Open Source movement isn’t about the software. It is about community. The Community of Linux.”

This is from Aldon Hynes a regular on Psyber-L. I am looking forward to discussion on this whole topic. The idea of Linux to me is central to the psyche in cyberspace. Community is one reason for that, to be sure.