On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 21:37:16 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 02:39:01 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 08:09:28 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:


I suspect you don't understand how most product cycles operate. I
don't have time to go through the details right now, but at some
point, a mature product (same as an over-sold product), ossifies into
a standard configuration, where all the competing products appear to
be 99% identical. You may have noticed this in Linux distros, which
are 99% identical, except for the installer, desktop decorations, and
bundled applications.

Actually there is only two main sources of Linux distros; Redhat &
Debian. The rest are rebadging of their work with greater (Canonical/
Ubuntu) and lessor, e.g devuan, which accounts for your comments. There
are very few truely independent distos, such as Slackware.

As to product lifestlye comments; spot on.

I thought that would get your attention. Thanks for the clarification
on distributions, but it still doesn't invalidate my 99% identical
comment.

Yep, to date it has all been "Linux" and some programs was served locally
from your distro source, but you are basically free to souce any package.

Every fork (such as the systemd haters forking Debian to
Devuan) borrows a great deal from its predecessor.

Err, devuan currently rus on/off the base debian source tree, but with an
empahsis in providing an alternative to the microsoft like systemd(one
ring to rule them all and allow back doors) This is wha the init-system
(start up method) debate was about; aka choice in how crank it all up.

MATE did the same for those who hated GNOME 3.0.

That is really desktop decorations. The real difference is the collection
of pretties/desktops each supposts. gnome made the mistake of assuming
that people were prepared to spend big money on hardware to run their
collection of shinies. They were not along in this delusion.

As new kernels are released, the fork creators continue to borrow.
Some forks may actually be 99% copies of
the main branch differing only in the installer and bundled apps. Others
have written their own utilities, package managers, and kernel
enhancements (performance enhancements and runs well on very little RAM)
and might perhaps be 92% borrowed. Whatever the differences, under the
hood (bonnet), they are very much similar to each other.
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=family-tree
Wikipedia claims there are about 500 Linux distributions in active
development. Distrowatch notes that the bulk of their downloads and
users use one (or more) of 11 major distributions:
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
Competition must be fierce among distributions in order to get the
attention of prospective users.

Err,hardly, unless you are thinking of IBM/Redhat & Canonica,l who really
are about selling support services,. that is the beauty of linux, you can
modify the collective whole or part of it, and release is as a disrto for
others to share. e.g scientific linux is a distro tweaked at the
scientific community. Others are tweaked for beginners, others to look
like the current MS OS.

Plenty of people actually roll their own kernels from the source for the
inherent greater performance. There is so much bloat in the kernel now
that it has largely left its unix/bsd origin or only loading code when
needed.

So, what do the minor distribution do
to get attention? Minor tweaks, just like the bicycle helmet business
and any other mature business that's facing a saturated market.

Except for a the people in the big companies, it isn't a business. The
income is for providing 'support' and as you say, it has a lot in common,
which means disagnostic tools abound and are common. (note to self, if
you remember to load them each time you roll a new machine)

My long held opinion is that people develop a new program(easier) or fork
a new version of anexisting one to make their reputation as a programmer,
to obtain employment. Lol, there has been at least one global linux
support company sink below the waves because they prioritised programmers
in their recruitment and consequently had no skills in actually providing
support services.

I might have an entirely different view to you as my entire Linux
exposure (almost) was never linked to an external pay packet. I revelled
in keeping old hardware working as it was very capable of providing for
my hobby and SOHO interests. I've also been around from before Linus
Torvalds posted his usenet message about something for the 386 kernel
and just as I spent a lot of time boosting bicycle groups, I spent a lot
of time boosting Linux Users Groups.

Similarly, I'm very happy with my steel diamond frame daily ride and the
only thing that has really change in bicycle helmet in our garage is that
every decade we buy another one as the poly foam has hardened abit.