Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo healthy?

[Alan McKinnon <alan@linuxholdings.co.za>]

On Monday 18 December 2006 20:54, Grant wrote:

> I believe the great benefit of Gentoo is its flexibility, and
> flexibility is like a meta-benefit because it makes possible any
> other benefit.  What do you think makes Ubuntu the distro of the
> moment?  Is it ease-of-use?  If Gentoo focused more on ease-of-use
> aspects of the Ubuntu variety, they would attract more users and
> thereby increase the rate of growth for the software.

Ubuntu is popular because a South African Python-loving, Debian-using 
billionaire astronaut who built Thawte from the ground up put up the 
money for it. The result is that currently it's in fashion - the same 
way that mini skirts and belly rings move in and out of fashion.

This is not to distract from what Ubuntu has achieved - Mark gathered a 
fine team to kick-start Ubuntu and they built a fine product which 
people like. It's also targeted to a very different set of users than 
gentoo. We had our time of being the latest cool thing two years ago 
but don't make the mistake of thinking that because the fanboys went 
somewhere else, that there's nothing left. The real core of gentoo, the 
heart and soul of it the expertise behind it, is still there doing what 
it always did - making ebuilds.

The Linux landscape consists of about 50% of fickle idiots who chase 
after the latest greatest rainbow. We have these because there is so 
much choice out there. As a contrast, Windows doesn't have this because 
there's nothing to choose from apart from standard Windows. Now, these 
50% fanboys move around from distro to distro every 6 to 9 months if my 
observations are accurate. What does this mean? Nothing. It *could* 
mean that a new distro is well marketed and well thought of - that's 
cool in the early days. When the fans move on to something new it 
doesn't mean anything about the last cool thing, it simply means that 
the fickle crowd have something new to go "ooh, wow!" about. In other 
words, it's a reflection of a considerable user bases' fickleness, and 
no reflection of any kind on the distro.

Get over it, gentoo isn't going anywhere. It's perfectly capable of 
coping with the creaks and groans of everyday life.

alan

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