From: "Geo." 

"Adam Flinton"  wrote in
message news:90935f.5a51c4{at}harborwebs.com...

> True. So each proprietary company is a group but the whole of OSS from
Eclipse
> to BSD to Linux to Apache to JBoss etc are all 1 group?

Not necessarily but yes they can be depending on whether or not they all
contribute to the same distribution.

> Neither is the full distrib of a major dist vs windows. Where are the
couple of
> SLQ db'es, the 3 or 4 Office suites, the compilers, the 5 or 6 GUI'es, the
9 or
> 10 editors etc.etc. on Windows?

I understand what you are saying but it's being marketed as RedHat Linux a
competitor to Windows. A competitor by definition makes it the same type of
product.

> So then if one was to narrow it to "OS'es wot run on a PC"
you're still
running
> the gamut from 5mb to 2-3GB of s/w wrt "linux".

Fine assume they are not the same type of product, then I guess RedHat has
no hopes of every replacing Windows on the desktop, right? You see where
your assumption fails?

Now the reason all the stuff in the distribution must be counted as part of
the product is because, as just one example, a flaw in a browser can
compromise the whole product. As the IE team has so aptly proven with NT,
you are only as secure as your weakest code..

> Not at all. Is a low end el-cheapo car comparable to a medium range or
high
> range car? They're all cars. I think you'll find if you open a "Car"
magazine
> you'll see a range of diferrently priced & equipped models & makes of
"car".

a gas powered radio controlled MODEL car is the same as a Cadillac? You
can't even ride in a model car.. now if you want to compare a sub compact
with a luxury car for safety features or theft prevention, ok fine. But a
watch and a desktop PC are like the toy vs the real car, one is disposable
the other is not.

> Exactly my point to Rich. He keeps wittering on about "linux" being
insecure or
> having vulns etc where he means the additons to linux the distro maker has
made
> most of the time.

Rich has been going on about RH version 9, you are the only one I've seen
calling it by just "Linux". If Rich did say just
"linux" in one sentence somewhere it was probably in response to
you calling it just "linux" and he thought it was understood that
there is no just "linux" but that you are actually talking about
one of the distributions.

Geo.

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