Re: Discussing issues

On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 05:36:34PM -0500, Billy Biggs wrote:
>David Dawes ([email protected]):
>
>> I don't understand why this is even an issue.  Right now, Jane Doe can
>> collect all of the pieces she's interested in and create an XJane
>> release whenever she wants.  Whoever needs a "release" can create one
>> that suits their needs, and on a schedule that suits them.  Don't the
>> Linux vendors effectively do this already?  Isn't that an important
>> part of the value they add to the free stuff they sell?
>
>  I thought that was the support nightmare we were trying to dig
>ourselves out of.  I do not believe that users expect distributions to
>modify source code for their release, only configurations.  Furthermore,
>every non-standard change made by a distribution is another barrier to
>entry for developers using that distribution, in my opinion.

Have you ever looked at a Red Hat Linux kernel?  The DRI build has
to hack around at least one internal API change.  Maybe that proves
your point.  This demonstrates that Red Hat's users expect something
from the Linux kernel that isn't available in the "standard" version,
and it is part of the value they're adding.

David
-- 
David Dawes
Founder/committer/developer                     The XFree86 Project
www.XFree86.org/~dawes