Debian flamewar (was: OpenOffice doc...)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, at 9:51pm, invalid at pizzashack.org wrote:
> In practice, so-called "stable" releases of certain software may be no
> better, but you're never going to convince a non-technical manager type
> that it's a good idea to use something which is not considered
> production-quality by the people who are developing it...

  Or even a technical type.  For all of Red Hat Software's faults (and they
are legion), they do at least understand the concept of configuration and
release management.  If you tell me a system is running Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3.0, then right away I know the versions, patches, build options, and
everything else about the kernel, C library, C compiler, X11, KDE/GNOME, and
a bunch of other things about the system.  If you tell me a system is
running Debian Sarge, about all that tells me is that it's probably running
Linux.  :)

  As an IT professional, I've pretty much reached the conclusion that
everything sucks.  My job is to figure *how* a given product sucks, and come
up with standard ways to work around the suckage.  Once I've done all that
work, I will often stick with a product I *know* to be inferior, simply
because I've already done that work.  I know switching to the superior
product will still end up with me muttering curses under my breath at some
point.  So I stick with the devil I know.  That's what CM is all about.

  That's why saying "just use testing/unstable" won't work.  Not because
it's of quality, but because it's a moving target.  Until Debian zealots get
that through their amazingly thick skulls, Debian will make no inroads with
me on a professional level.  And I know I speak for many other professional
geeks as well.

  Debian also makes no inroads with me on a hobby level, either, but I
suspect that's just because it knows my opinion and so refuses to ever work
properly.  ;-)

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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