Re: Please don't step on others' toes... (was: Mandrake is a clunky piece of sh!t, and an embarrassment to the Open Source/Free Software communites)

Well, if people will insist on putting their toes in the way.

On Saturday 31 May 2003 8:12 am, Karl-Heinz Zimmer wrote:
> Besides from this being a vague and extremely unpolite statement that
> IMO should not be posted on a list having the word 'polite' in ite policy
> I wonder what exactly you wanted to express: having run several different
> releases of Mandrake Linux in the past I never got the impression you
> wrote but for me it was a well-maintained Distro with its strengths and
> its weeknesses - similar to the other ones.

I can only suggest then that, to pull one example of many out of a hat, you 
never attempted to install any software using the ridiculous 'urpmi' system, 
that, nine times out of ten, spends forever downloading only to fail due to 
some dependency issue. Funny how certain distributions which don't even 
bother with dependencies seem to be so much more reliable in this regard.

And yet, every time people like Tim give Mandrake glowing reviews, apparently 
without actually using the system, I find myself coming back to it. Some 
people never learn I guess.

Not that I'm criticising Tim for writing glowing reviews of something that 
works for him, especially since I don't pay to read Ofb.biz. Linux Format, 
OTOH, is an entirely different matter.

> So please be fair and either specify exactly what you mean or stop making
> such statements

Well, as I said I was going to do this, but then realised that I'd have to 
write a full scale essay. So I thought it would be easier to just post the 
message as is, and let controversy cause people to tease my complaints out of 
me in a leisurely fashion.

> - in any case please try to be more polite: there are
> lots of people who worked hard to make the Mandrake distros and IMO it is
> not OK to titulate their work the way you did.

Well, a lot of people worked hard to produce Microsoft Windows, and yet it is 
perfectly acceptable to point out that it is a badly written, buggy piece of 
junk that has, without a doubt, kept innovation in the IT industry back a 
decade or more, and then some. Of course, everyone who worked on Microsoft 
Windows did so purely for the money, whereas some people who worked on 
Mandrake did it for love. But then Mandrake are also a company who, through 
their business model of beggary and the occasional sale of merchandise, 
expect people to pay money to support their existence. So perhaps you'd like 
to redirect my criticism at Mandrake the company rather than Mandrake the 
group of dedicated individuals working together for the good of the universe. 
This is, in fact, exactly what was intended.

-- 
dan

"Were i susceptible to having my mind changed, it would have changed my mind" 
- Matthew Parris

Kde-cafe mailing list - [email protected]
http://ofb.biz/lists/listinfo.cgi/kde-cafe

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this mailinglist are the personal
opinions of the author and do not represent OfB.biz: Open for Business, KDE or the author's employer.