Wrong question to ask...

Posted Aug 16, 2008 7:34 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: It will work somewhat like that... by NAR
Parent article: Something going on with Fedora

The question is: is it worth to have so many different configuration?

And the answer is: there are no alternative. Windows world includes a lot of duplication too: fresh installation of Windows XP already includes three or four versions of LibC (called msvcr* in Windows world), for example. But since there are central authority it can force it's views on the world. In Linux world the only central authority is Linus - and even he has very little control over kernel shipped to customers, let alone the rest of system. So there no way to avoid different configurations...

I understand that Linux evolves faster Windows, so there are a whole lot more versions out there - but do these releases add something to the desktop user?

Probably now. But then the situation is simple: either you release stuff - and it can be used by new projects, or you don't release stuff at all - and then you'll have frozen desktop forever. Joint development and early releases only for trusted partners don't work in OSS world very well... Again: no central authority - no way to synchronize development... Some weak synchronization is possible, but nothing like Windows world...