Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Distros specifically designed for children
Date: Wed, 28 May 2025 23:57:15 -0000 (UTC)
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On Wed, 28 May 2025 12:34:28 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:

> On 2025-05-27, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Moral: those who are brought up under a regime that doesn’t give them 
a 
>> choice, often find it difficult to adapt to having freedom of choice.
> 
> I don't think this story is apropos.

Like the Communists, you lack a grounding in the basic laws of economics.

> Pointless choice can be a net cost.

If the gain offsets the cost, then the result is profit.

The Free Software world is a shining example of free-market economics in 
action, in a way that proprietary software is not: the barriers to entry 
are low. That’s why you have so few choices among proprietary software, 
and so many among Free software. The situation of having 300-odd Linux 
distros has been like that for something like 15 years, if I remember 
rightly.

Basically, it’s gone well past the point where anybody could claim that 
this situation is somehow unsustainable.

> At the moment, all cars that take unleaded petrol take the same size
> fuel nozzle at the petrol station.

And don’t forget, all the roads and road signs are standardized, as are 
all the controls in those cars. That gives you the freedom to own whatever 
car you want, and drive it on whatever roads you want, to go wherever you 
want. And then get rid of that car and buy another one, whenever you want. 
You have standardization with variety and interoperability, and minimal 
fragmentation.

The correspondence in the Free Software world is that all those Linux 
distros are built on the same Linux kernel, mostly include the same common 
GNU userland core, and offer most of the same core apps. This gives you 
the freedom to run whichever distro you want, use it to do whatever you 
want. And then replace it with another distro, without having to throw 
away all the work you’ve done.

> Now imagine that some doofus at a car company really thinks that the
> nozzle should be 1" wider, so they build two variants of cars, one
> slightly more expensive, and it only works at the pumps with the wider
> nozzles.

Nobody would buy their product ... unless they had a really huge 
advertising budget to tell everyone how wonderful it was, and why those 
who don’t switch over from the common, perfectly-good standard are missing 
out on something wonderful.

Sound like anyone you know?