Left by Rawhide
Left by Rawhide
Posted Jul 17, 2012 9:12 UTC (Tue) by viiru (subscriber, #53129)In reply to: Left by Rawhide by dowdle
Parent article: Left by Rawhide
> People sometimes freak out about the number of Linux distros but I ask
> them why aren't there multiple flavors of Windows and Mac available...
> besides the few releases provided by their makers? The answer is obvious,
> because they don't allow third parties to remix and release like Linux
> does... but you have to wonder just how many Windows there would be and
> how many Mac OS X's there would be if people were allowed to remix it. My
> guess is that they would have the same "problem" we do if only they were
> allowing it.
> them why aren't there multiple flavors of Windows and Mac available...
> besides the few releases provided by their makers? The answer is obvious,
> because they don't allow third parties to remix and release like Linux
> does... but you have to wonder just how many Windows there would be and
> how many Mac OS X's there would be if people were allowed to remix it. My
> guess is that they would have the same "problem" we do if only they were
> allowing it.
There are already nearly endless amounts of custom Windows installer cd images, with different sets of updates and additional drivers added. Distributing those is of course illegal, but since there is a need (there is plenty of hardware where the standard images wont even boot, many manufacturers no longer provide install disks and even if they did most users lose those within the first week of ownership) there is a service.