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that's a strength
Each Linux based distribution is a seporate product in the same way each brand of automobile is a seporate product. Cars all interoperate with each other on the road system, Linux based distros all interoperate with each other on the network system. Different cars use common commodity parts as do different Linux based distributions.
No single car can fit every driver's needs but different cars are indeed focused on the needs and desires of different drivers. It's the same with Linux based distributions which focus on different user's needs and desires.
Competition between distributions is essential to the evolution of the technology also. If you think KDE fits your "user friendly" development goal better than Gnome desktop then you've now diverged from "The One True And Holy Linux Distro" but you've also provided a desktop which may better serve your product development goals. Canonical has been able to fork Debian and provide it's distribution because competition is encouraged. Mint has been able to fork Canonical's distribution and provide an even higher degree of "new user" and hardware support polish because competition is encouraged. Backtrack is a fantastic security professional's distribution but it's not apropriate for regular users; it exists because multiple Linux based distributions exist. There are older security distributions which have fallen behind because of Backtrack beating them out based on healthy market competition like product functionality and quality. There are new security distros being created which may continue to push Backtrack or eventually replace it because of healthy market competition. Edubuntu may be apropriated for educational environments but it would not best support security professional's needs or a professional work environment. SUSE may fit well in a business environment but it's not the bet fit for all other uses.
At this application level, I actually use two seporate email client's for specific needs. If competition and choice where not encouraged, I might not have that benefit. Debian provides some 30,000 packages available for users to choose from as they find new needs or explore new functionalities. Compare that to the first netbooks running a hardware vendor specific version of Xandros; the manufacturer took an already uncompetitive distribution and managed to make it even less competitive than alternatives available at the time. Other distributions where able to adapt through healthy market competition as they tried to provide replacements for the first Eee PCs. Because there are more than one distribution with one single list of programs, that hardware became much more beneficial to end users.
Altimately, the monoculture is unhealthy for both a technology and the end user in pretty much every product category. Windows has shipped functionality on a marketing schedual because it dominated the market for so long. It's tool used in the manufacture of Microsoft's actual product; shareholder profits. The price tag attached to it has only been kept in check recently because of competition like other OS distributions. Remember the outcry over Vista pricing until Microsoft started loosing market share to Linux distributions in other markets? The malware epidemic is directly related to the popularity of an OS monoculture which evolved out of a primary need to profit and a secondary need to provide product quality as long as it didn't significantly affect product development costs. The same configuration of the same vulnerabilities across the majority of platforms does not result in benefits for the end user or premote improvement fo the technology. Consider Internet Explorer which was left to stagnate once it drove off intital web browser comeptitors; it got so bad by IE6 that there are websites dedicated to tracking it's death. You would not have the choice of Friefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera or any other web browser if we had a one OS with one app per function software market. At this year's Canwest; IE and Safari where the first two browsers exploited so you'd be screwed on Windows and osX for lack of healthy market competition driving other browser developers to focus on different design goals.
If you don't want to choose between a large selection of distributions, stick to the top four or five major distributions or stick to the distros specific to your intended use. If you don't want to choose between different software packages available within a distribution, stick to the defaults the distrubiton provides. You make the exact same choices when you buy your groceries; one shelf, lots of cereal boxes. Somehow the breakfast foods industry doesn't collaps or recieve outcry over the choice consumers must endure with such fortitude.
No single car can fit every driver's needs but different cars are indeed focused on the needs and desires of different drivers. It's the same with Linux based distributions which focus on different user's needs and desires.
Competition between distributions is essential to the evolution of the technology also. If you think KDE fits your "user friendly" development goal better than Gnome desktop then you've now diverged from "The One True And Holy Linux Distro" but you've also provided a desktop which may better serve your product development goals. Canonical has been able to fork Debian and provide it's distribution because competition is encouraged. Mint has been able to fork Canonical's distribution and provide an even higher degree of "new user" and hardware support polish because competition is encouraged. Backtrack is a fantastic security professional's distribution but it's not apropriate for regular users; it exists because multiple Linux based distributions exist. There are older security distributions which have fallen behind because of Backtrack beating them out based on healthy market competition like product functionality and quality. There are new security distros being created which may continue to push Backtrack or eventually replace it because of healthy market competition. Edubuntu may be apropriated for educational environments but it would not best support security professional's needs or a professional work environment. SUSE may fit well in a business environment but it's not the bet fit for all other uses.
At this application level, I actually use two seporate email client's for specific needs. If competition and choice where not encouraged, I might not have that benefit. Debian provides some 30,000 packages available for users to choose from as they find new needs or explore new functionalities. Compare that to the first netbooks running a hardware vendor specific version of Xandros; the manufacturer took an already uncompetitive distribution and managed to make it even less competitive than alternatives available at the time. Other distributions where able to adapt through healthy market competition as they tried to provide replacements for the first Eee PCs. Because there are more than one distribution with one single list of programs, that hardware became much more beneficial to end users.
Altimately, the monoculture is unhealthy for both a technology and the end user in pretty much every product category. Windows has shipped functionality on a marketing schedual because it dominated the market for so long. It's tool used in the manufacture of Microsoft's actual product; shareholder profits. The price tag attached to it has only been kept in check recently because of competition like other OS distributions. Remember the outcry over Vista pricing until Microsoft started loosing market share to Linux distributions in other markets? The malware epidemic is directly related to the popularity of an OS monoculture which evolved out of a primary need to profit and a secondary need to provide product quality as long as it didn't significantly affect product development costs. The same configuration of the same vulnerabilities across the majority of platforms does not result in benefits for the end user or premote improvement fo the technology. Consider Internet Explorer which was left to stagnate once it drove off intital web browser comeptitors; it got so bad by IE6 that there are websites dedicated to tracking it's death. You would not have the choice of Friefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera or any other web browser if we had a one OS with one app per function software market. At this year's Canwest; IE and Safari where the first two browsers exploited so you'd be screwed on Windows and osX for lack of healthy market competition driving other browser developers to focus on different design goals.
If you don't want to choose between a large selection of distributions, stick to the top four or five major distributions or stick to the distros specific to your intended use. If you don't want to choose between different software packages available within a distribution, stick to the defaults the distrubiton provides. You make the exact same choices when you buy your groceries; one shelf, lots of cereal boxes. Somehow the breakfast foods industry doesn't collaps or recieve outcry over the choice consumers must endure with such fortitude.
Posted by Neon Samurai
7th Jun 2011
