Inventing the wheel ... or the axle, differential, bearing, ....

 In the context of this article's analogy "the wheel" represents the Linux
 distribution.  MCC-Interim, SLS (SoftLanding Systems), Jurix, TAMU and
 their ilk were different incarnations of a new concept --- different
 operating systems, independently created from a common collection of
 free software sources.

 Working within this analogy Debian was another incarnation (a re-invention
 of this concept).  What they invented (their package management) is
 perhaps analogous to an axle and/or differential.  Their package manager
 by itself is not substantively different than Red Hat's RPM (they both
 "package" a set of precompiled binaries, libraries, man pages, and
 other resources along with {pre,post},{install,remove} scripts, and
 metadata (including dependencies).  If we think of those as the
 "axle" then perhaps one could extend the analogy to the breaking point
 by likening the dependency structure -- parts of the Debian policy --- 
 or perhaps the ''dselect'' utility would be the differential.

JimD