text_combined: matthew french mfrench42yahoocouk kate p looney wrote vendors wrote wierdass installers config tools lock people os added sorts functionality availible oses make different competition think words looking competitive advantage differentiation since linux vendors businesses need make money survive1 make money need sell products ensure sell product must provide something vendors side produces many variations product benefit open source common standard everyone share side competition drives different organisations constantly improve product offering2 unlike sunos vs aix vs hpux vs tru64 apis available functionality often starkly different linux distributions mostly may look varnamed red hat etcbind debian binaries basically man pages cases man named reveal compiled location config files long understood easy enough administer linux distributions expect companies public sector organisations begin understand open source paradigm find even distributions appearing reason believe deriving new distribution say debian requires comparatively little effort would see requiring slightly effort amount time many enterprise admins spend trying customise desktops screen savers software distribution mechanisms organisations imho always matthew 1 depending world view may rephrased need make oodles profits screw little man survive discussion beyond scope list 2 often overlooked problem competition weakens combatants leaving field open less powerful force take entrench position case would referring microsoft however believe effect linux movement vendors obliged work together great degree thanks gpl __________________________________________________ yahoo everything youll ever need one web page news sport email music charts httpukmyyahoocom irish linux users group iluglinuxie httpwwwlinuxiemailmanlistinfoilug unsubscription information list maintainer listmasterlinuxie tue 13 aug 2002 100743 0100 ilug suse 8 disks thread changed slightly