Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols' pathetic apology for corporations
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| kumasan Mar 19, 2006 5:15 PM EDT |
I listened with some dismay at the lame attempts by Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols to present what happened with Gael Duval and Mandrake/Mandrivia as somehow the expression of some yet to be defined inevitability which all the GNU/Linux (yes, I only call the kernel 'linux') community should have the wisdom to learn to accept: Mandrake/Mandrivia is going the Red Hat way and we should all accept that GNU/Linux does not belong to us any more, but to the corporate world and their 'logic'. Well, I have news for Mr. Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols. As a former Mandrake user since Mdk 7.2 and as a former Mandrake Silver Club member I would like to tell him that long before the firing of Gael Duval I quit Mandrake because I detected that instead of developing good code, they embarked on a utterly useless policy of mergers and acquisitions a la Enron (also - Mandrivia 2006 did, for the first time, not install on my computer). I switched to Debian. Debian, my not so dear Mr. Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols is *entierly* community centered and community run. It cannot go bankrupt or report a poor third quarter because it does not even exist as a commercial entity. It will acquire no other company, nor will it be bought. It has no director of marketing or human resources to decide on termination of contacts because it has no contracts. Last, but certainly not least - it is the fastest growing distro out there because more and more people like myself are getting fed up with the 'corporatization' of what people like you refer to as 'linux'. GNU/Linux is a community product and it will stay that way. You want proof? Debian comes with 18000+ applications developed by more than 1000 maintainers, it is the most stable and secure distro ever. And since Debian-Sarge it is also easy to install (you can even use Kanotix to install it with even less effort than Mandriva). As a former Mandrake user I can attest that Synaptic is better than anything Mandrake ever developed, APT is far superior to RPMs, and the community is fantastic (and not need to give money to belong to any club). Mr. Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols is wrong, very wrong in fact. His mistaken belief that the corporate world must corrupt everything is nothing but a reflection of his own lack of understanding of what GNU/Linux, with the emphasis on the *GNU* part, stands for. I thank the GNU project, the FSF and Debian for protecting us from your likes. |
| salparadise Mar 19, 2006 9:53 PM EDT |
Great response kumasan! To the corporations, a connected, informed, mutually supportive community must be terrifying. Everything they fear is contained within those few words. |
| richo123 Mar 20, 2006 5:24 AM EDT |
Yeah "amazing revelation" to people of the hard Right. Sometimes people act effectively and efficiently for reasons other than straight self interest. "Simply Amazing" |
| kumasan Mar 20, 2006 6:14 AM EDT |
Its just pathetic to see how so many people have been brainwashed by the corporate world into actually believing that the 'corporate way' is the only way. Its even more pathetic that some self-declared "cynic" would get to spew is 'comments' at a community which still remains composed of people with real, human, values. They would do well to remember that the greatest achievement of mankind were not the result of greed and amorality but vision, faith and personal courage. All Mr. Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols has achieved, at least with me, is to strengthen my resolve to support the Debian project and the Free Software Foundation with every penny I can spare. Thanks Steve for reminding me how much we need them! |
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