This makes me want to spend some time creating a new distribution with its own desktop environment.
Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
41–46 of 46 posts
Re: Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
#42Not this self-centered, ignorant complaint again. Even if this time really is 100% wasted, it's not your wasted time, so it's none of your business anyway. Open source devs don't owe your their time, and you're not entitled to tell them what to work on. But the time isn't wasted, in any case. If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created. A huge project like a desktop manager or…
Note that this position is mutually exclusive with "It's open source so you can just fix it yourself when it breaks". I can go fix it myself, sure, but then it is my wasted time, that there are 8 or 10 major distros. We shouldn't have to fix the same bug so many times. I don't want 8 or 10 distros. I only want one. I don't even care which one it is. I haven't contributed to that OS in 10 years because so much of my t…
> Note that this position is mutually exclusive with "It's open source so you can just fix it yourself when it breaks". I can go fix it myself, sure, but then it is my wasted time, that there are 8 or 10 major distros. We shouldn't have to fix the same bug so many times.
They seem to be complimentary ideas. I might refuse to fix your bug or add the feature you want, but you're free to take my code and do it yourself. It's no more a waste of your time than it would be of the other dev's.
I also don't see what you're saying about fixing the same bug 10 times. That's not how it works. Each distro is responsible for itself. If you submit a fix to zsh, for example, it's up to each distro to go upstream and get that fix themselves. Same goes for bugs fixed by distro maintainers - it's awesome if they submit the fix to the upstream, but they're not obligated.
> Or, if you take the position that "Developers don't owe you anything", then that's fair on its own, but it means that it's not an OS that I can depend on for anything.
And maybe you shouldn't. "Buyer beware" should apply double when you're getting something for free.
Paid Linux distros exist for a reason. If you're depending on it for something important it's worth paying for Ubuntu or RHEL.
> That doesn't follow at all. There are plenty of reasons for starting an alternative software project which have nothing to do with meeting any user need. "Ego" is a common one -- it serves only one person's interest.
Exactly, there are plenty of reasons. Just because you think they're bad reasons doesn't mean they are, or that anybody has to listen to you.
Re: Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I still believe we should have a tiny bit more integrative groups. Just a tad. No need to force people and resist their energy, but a bit of constructive interference. There's nothing stopping you from running a vanilla Ubuntu install. What other people choose to do is still none of your business, though.
> What other people choose to do is still none of your business, though. So they're not allowed to opine on it? What if that's what they chose to do?
Fair enough. Sometimes it's hard to tell if people are opining or proclaiming.
Re: Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
#44Not this self-centered, ignorant complaint again. Even if this time really is 100% wasted, it's not your wasted time, so it's none of your business anyway. Open source devs don't owe your their time, and you're not entitled to tell them what to work on. But the time isn't wasted, in any case. If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created. A huge project like a desktop manager or…
I agree, I view the Linux community the same way I view music. I like that every artist can make what they want, and I'm not owed anything from any of them - they aren't required to have their next album/distro be like their last one, and they aren't required to help me understand their work. Not everything needs to be catered to me. If I don't like an album or distro, that's my problem, not the musician's/developer's.
Re: Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
#45It seems that the author is only aware of the existence of general-purpose distributions. They did not list any distribution with, say, different approach to packaging, or for use in HPC, security, NAS, embedded, you name it. Also, for some reason they cannot avoid listing more or less all well established general-purpose distributions, while that is really the list between which you are supposed to choose one or two if you care about not trying many similar things. It seems that the only criterion to be on this list is to be well known. Same for the DEs.
Re: Wasted Creativity in the GNU/Linux Distribution Diversity
#46On one hand, time and effort is wasted doing the same thing 100 times with slight differences rather than just working on the same thing. But on the other hand, in my opinion these differences are very important. For example, you listed that only a few desktop environments are necessary. While that may be true for the vast majority of Linux users, the more fringe desktop environments/window managers are great. For ex…
But I wouldn’t class i3 as slightly different. Probably an argument can be made that the prevalence of similar DEs ensured the APIs and interfaces that allowed for an i3.