3 ms·

Is there really a need for them to create their own distributions?

by bananamerica 6y ago

unixhero 6y ago
No. And it's a shame everyone does.
- andai 6y ago
  I've been wondering about this. Competition breeds innovation and all that, but in the end, aren't we ending up with a whole lot of repeated effort for little benefit?
  - dewey 6y ago
    I guess it's a whole lot easier to repeat the effort (Even if it seems wasteful) than getting multiple countries / governments / languages and funding situations organized around one project. Probably just easier to do it on your own and if at some point one of the distributions is gaining some momentum maybe then others will adopt it and send patches upstream.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Keep in mind that the whole motivation of these is "we don't trust outside group X"; these governments have no reason to believe that OSS isn't compromised, and one of the easiest ways to know everything is to do a lot of the work yourself.
yellowapple 6y ago
I mean, it depends on what "their own distributions" entails. Adding customized branding or extra localizations or a different mix of preinstalled apps to a popular distro like Ubuntu/Debian or Fedora/CentOS or what have you seems perfectly reasonable.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
If you're an authoritarian government and want to compromise them to report on users, yes. Most more liberal countries could and should use standard distros. Some listed countries are banned or blocked from major company services that might be default on a normal distro, such as Google or GitHub as well. So beyond just setting country-relevant defaults, using a standard distro may present problems for some countries.
clarry 6y ago
Why not? If this is about trust, then it makes sense that you don't choose between trusting a corporation or a group of hobbyists, but take control and eliminate one layer of things to trust altogether. Bonus points, you get control too and don't have to fight upstream to pursue and care about your interests.
simion314 6y ago
Yes. Is not as easy you chose your location and language and done. I remember me having to download,install and configure stuff to get spellchecking working in Firefox and Open Office. Also 10 years back to connect to internet I had to use a PPP application, this was not included by default in Ubuntu but the localized spin included this, the spellcheckingt stuff and other stuff. Also if your country does not need to follow the laws about the codecs you can include them and not have your users have to install them.

Is there really a need for them to create their own distributions?

unixhero 6y ago

No. And it's a shame everyone does.

andai 6y ago
I've been wondering about this. Competition breeds innovation and all that, but in the end, aren't we ending up with a whole lot of repeated effort for little benefit?
- dewey 6y ago
  I guess it's a whole lot easier to repeat the effort (Even if it seems wasteful) than getting multiple countries / governments / languages and funding situations organized around one project. Probably just easier to do it on your own and if at some point one of the distributions is gaining some momentum maybe then others will adopt it and send patches upstream.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Keep in mind that the whole motivation of these is "we don't trust outside group X"; these governments have no reason to believe that OSS isn't compromised, and one of the easiest ways to know everything is to do a lot of the work yourself.

yellowapple 6y ago

I mean, it depends on what "their own distributions" entails. Adding customized branding or extra localizations or a different mix of preinstalled apps to a popular distro like Ubuntu/Debian or Fedora/CentOS or what have you seems perfectly reasonable.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

If you're an authoritarian government and want to compromise them to report on users, yes. Most more liberal countries could and should use standard distros. Some listed countries are banned or blocked from major company services that might be default on a normal distro, such as Google or GitHub as well. So beyond just setting country-relevant defaults, using a standard distro may present problems for some countries.

clarry 6y ago

Why not? If this is about trust, then it makes sense that you don't choose between trusting a corporation or a group of hobbyists, but take control and eliminate one layer of things to trust altogether. Bonus points, you get control too and don't have to fight upstream to pursue and care about your interests.

simion314 6y ago

Yes. Is not as easy you chose your location and language and done. I remember me having to download,install and configure stuff to get spellchecking working in Firefox and Open Office. Also 10 years back to connect to internet I had to use a PPP application, this was not included by default in Ubuntu but the localized spin included this, the spellcheckingt stuff and other stuff. Also if your country does not need to follow the laws about the codecs you can include them and not have your users have to install them.