"Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

lseubert · 2009-08-27 00:12:18

A "mutual free community" Linux distribution is non-commercial, free, and multi-developer; with a strong community. Arch definitely fits these four criteria. I find such distros fascinating - they are a pure, volunteer, non-profit entity - very altruistic; with sufficient mindshare and participation to survive long term.

Looking in more detail at these four criteria, what other distros do and do not qualify as Mutual Free Community Distributions?

1. A mutual free community distro is not created by a commercial enterprise, nor is it derivative of a commercial distro, nor is it supported by or closely linked with a commercial distro. This excludes distros like Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva, etc, as well as Fedora, PCLinuxOS, OpenSuSE, CentOS, etc.

2. A mutual free community Linux distribution is free, as in both free speech and free beer. It embraces free software and freedom for users, and there are no separate versions of the distro - one free of charge and the other for a fee. This precludes a distro like Mepis.

3. A mutual free community distro practices cooperation because it has many developers working together, instead of just one or a few developers. This ensures robustness, innovation, and long-term survivability. This exlcudes distros like Puppy Linux, and very likely Slackware as well. By extension, it would exclude derivatives of these distros as well, such as Zenwalk.

4. Finally, a mutual free community distro engenders a strong, healthy community which assists in creating, maintaining, and supporting the distro. Ugh. I hate to name names here, thus labeling a distro's community as less-than-wonderful. I have heard that things got nasty over in Gentoo. Can any ex-Gentoo folks speak up on this? I just don't know myself. Gentoo otherwise qualifies on the other criteria

So, what other distros qualify as meeting these criteria? Here is a short list I came up with so far. Any suggestions or alterations?

Debian
sidux
Gentoo?
LFS
Pardus
FreeBSD?
NetBSD?

Acecero · 2009-08-27 00:34:06

You put up a tough criteria, so these would be my guess.

Frugalware
live.linuX-gamers
GoboLinux

AdrenalineJunky · 2009-08-27 00:40:44

lseubert wrote:

2. A mutual free community Linux distribution is free, as in both free speech and free beer. It embraces free software and freedom for users, and there are no separate versions of the distro - one free of charge and the other for a fee. This precludes a distro like Mepis.

there is a very indistinct line that this is suggesting. should arch be eliminated by for including closed source packages? should debian be eliminated for providing the non-free repo, even though its not part of the default distro? should only distro's that include binary packages on installation media be excluded? only those that create binary packages for thier distro's?

Ghost1227 · 2009-08-27 00:42:45

I'll have to think about what else fits the criteria, but I would argue that due to the acknowledged developer infighting, Gentoo is off the list. Given their heritage (derived from AT&T UNIX, which was commercial IIRC) anything -BSD is off the list. And since LFS is a guidebook on building a distro rather than an actual distro itself, I'm not sure it even qualifies for the list...

AdrenalineJunky · 2009-08-27 00:47:48

oh, one other thing i forgot to meantion, for which criteria in that point were you disqualifying mepis?

installer and assistants were closed source, but were released under apache license in 08.

and technically speaking i wouldn't say thier are two versions of mepis, there is one version, with the option to pay or not to pay.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 02:43:10

AdrenalineJunky wrote:

there is a very indistinct line that this is suggesting. should arch be eliminated by for including closed source packages? should debian be eliminated for providing the non-free repo, even though its not part of the default distro? should only distro's that include binary packages on installation media be excluded? only those that create binary packages for thier distro's?

Yeah, that is a tough one. The way I see it, Arch and Debian make available non-free software, but you are never required to install it to have a functional system. I know that doesn't satisfy Richard Stallman's rigorous requirements, but it suffices for mine. Overall, Debian is more rigorous about freedom purity than Arch.

Of course, I thought about taking Debian off the list because they do have some vague commercial ties. A few Debian developers are employed by large companies to work on Debian specifically. And I am guessing that Software in the Public Interest gets some big donations from who knows where.

But in the end, nitpicking this list is somewhat counter-productive. There are very few distros that will qualify as it is, even using generous interpretations of the criteria.

Does anybody here remember when Linux was accused of being a "communist" operating system? Ironic, how these many years later, there are so few distros that are genuinely non-commercial. Linux has been a smashing, profitable success

lseubert · 2009-08-27 02:49:03

Ghost1227 wrote:

I'll have to think about what else fits the criteria, but I would argue that due to the acknowledged developer infighting, Gentoo is off the list. Given their heritage (derived from AT&T UNIX, which was commercial IIRC) anything -BSD is off the list. And since LFS is a guidebook on building a distro rather than an actual distro itself, I'm not sure it even qualifies for the list...

Yeah, I wonder what is going on with Gentoo. Their release process has gotten quite bogged down - they just don't have the resources it seems. Pity.

Well, while the *BSDs once had a commercial heritage, AT&T didn't make much of anything off of it, and it was all released under the old BSD license a long time ago, making it available to anybody. At least, this would seem to merit including FreeBSD.

OpenBSD? Well, how much of a one-man show is it? I know Theo de Raadt is in charge, but how large and active is the developer team? Also, technically, OpenBSD - the CD-ROM - is not at all free. That fails the criteria as well.

NetBSD? I seem to recall that they were once "owned" by WindRiver or some-such, yes? Is that still the case? If so, NetBSD might be crossed off the list.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 02:51:21

AdrenalineJunky wrote:

oh, one other thing i forgot to meantion, for which criteria in that point were you disqualifying mepis?
installer and assistants were closed source, but were released under apache license in 08.
and technically speaking i wouldn't say thier are two versions of mepis, there is one version, with the option to pay or not to pay.

Well, Mepis is mostly a one-man show, so it could be disqualified on that count.

As for the CD's, well, the last I heard, there was a commercial CD which was different from the free CD. If this has changed, then my knowledge is out of date.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 02:53:34

Acecero wrote:

You put up a tough criteria, so these would be my guess.
Frugalware
live.linuX-gamers
GoboLinux

Do you think that each of these has multiple developers and a thriving community?

Interesting list though - live.linuX-gamers is an Arch derivative, but not intended for installation.

skottish · 2009-08-27 03:11:48

lseubert,

Please use the edit button in the future as opposed to bumping the thread three times in less than ten mintues.

Ranguvar · 2009-08-27 09:59:31

OpenBSD is very much a multi-developer project. NetBSD and FreeBSD are also "mutual free community" operating systems, I believe. Plan 9 is, it's watched over by Bell Labs but only in an academic sense. PureDarwin as well, maybe... what do you think? It's a distro using the open-source Darwin kernel of OS X, which has inspiration and code from FreeBSD, and the userland is also BSD. Apple does do almost all kernel development, but then again companies fund almost all Linux kernel development.

Gentoo is not... developer rage, yes. I don't want to name names, but as reason for "voting off" Gentoo, SpanKY is particularly hostile.... Check out #funtoo on Freenode, they have some good stories. I only experienced it once, and more just quick frustration: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249280

ReactOS I think also counts... well, I guess not, since it is trying to clone Windoze.

Allan · 2009-08-27 10:48:16

Careful when commenting on other distros:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … ng_Systems

Also, what is the point of classifying distros under this strange header?

.:B:. · 2009-08-27 13:25:56

I fully agree with Allan. What is your intention in classifying them - besides 'glorifying' arch? My impression is you set your (personal) 'standards' so Arch fits the bill, then try to find others. That is - and I put this mildly - not really objective.

There are quite a few people around who like to distantiate themselves from the rest of the Linux community and think of themselves as better (or as people using a better distro), but I don't think we want those on the forums.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 13:37:35

Allan wrote:

Careful when commenting on other distros:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … ng_Systems

Alan, what is dividing line on this one? I reviewed and I accept the etiquette about respecting other distros, but I could use some guidance here. Let me use examples outside of the comments on this thread to clarify. I'll pick on Debian because they are big boys and they can take it

"Debian has over 20,000 packages on 11 hardware architectures." I assume that is acceptable - it is straight up technical fact.

"Debian has a ponderously slow release cycle." This is true, everybody knows it - even the Debian folks cop to it; but it is slightly derogatory. Is something like that acceptable vis a vis Arch forum etiquette?

"During recent development freezes, aggrieved minorities within the Debian community have sabotaged their own release process, slowing it down, as the only viable way to get their issues heard and acted upon." Now that statement, while technically true, could be considered disrespectful.

There is a conflict here between being truthful and being nice all the time. Sometimes, to be truthful, you simply can not be nice. I understand that you, as a forum moderator, have to make some tough judgment calls on these sorts of issues. I am trying to better understand what the limits are so that I can self-regulate my behavior within the Arch community.

One of the reasons the Arch community works so well, I believe, is this expectation of self-regulation. It certainly makes the job of forum moderator a lot easier, compared to continuous flamewar distros like XXXXXX, XXXX, and especially XXXXXX XXXX.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 13:55:22

skottish wrote:

lseubert,
Please use the edit button in the future as opposed to bumping the thread three times in less than ten mintues.

Will do. See below

(Damn. It's gonna take me forever to get to 200 posts now.)

Allan wrote:

Also, what is the point of classifying distros under this strange header?

Mostly an intellectual exercise for my inner-taxonomist I suppose. In trying to figure out where Arch fits within the distro ecosystem, I realized that it has a unique set of characteristics, and rare ones at that. Moreover, it is interesting to examine distros based upon cultural criteria, rather than the usual technical criteria. And this material might wind up in my Arch Linux review. I assume this is the right forum section for this, yes?

B wrote:

I fully agree with Allan. What is your intention in classifying them - besides 'glorifying' arch? My impression is you set your (personal) 'standards' so Arch fits the bill, then try to find others. That is - and I put this mildly - not really objective.
There are quite a few people around who like to distantiate themselves from the rest of the Linux community and think of themselves as better (or as people using a better distro), but I don't think we want those on the forums.

I believe you misunderstand my purpose. Some of this I explain in my response to Alan just above. My criteria are arbitrary - yes. But all criteria are arbitrarily selected, if you think about it.

That said, my criteria for looking at distros within this thread are, admittedly, very different - they are cultural, rather than technical, but this does not mean they are invalid or subjective. Can not one say, objectively, that such-and-so distro is commcerically developed, while this distro is communually developed? Yes, just as one can objectively say that such-and-so distro uses .rpm packages, while this distro uses .deb packages.

As for my creating a set of personal standards that fit Arch, and then trying to find others that meet that standard, mmmm, not quite. Do you see my avatar over there on the left? That symbol represents a political and economic philosophy know as "Mutualism". If you care to read the wikipedia article link, I think you will then see why I am interested in what free software operating systems qualify as communually developed. I didn't bring in this politico-economic aspect when I initiated this thread because my understanding is that such things violate Arch webforum etiquette.

Ranguvar wrote:

OpenBSD is very much a multi-developer project.

Yes, OpenBSD has multiple developers, but does the project thrive if Theo gets hit by a runaway cement truck? If it does thrive, then OpenBSD is on the list. If not, then OpenBSD is too dependent upon just one person, despite having multiple developers, and thus doesn't meet the criteria. Sorry - I should have made that more clear in the beginning.

(And yes - I assume that if Phrakture tried to lift a cement truck, failed, and was crushed underneath, that Arch would live on.)

Ranguvar wrote:

NetBSD and FreeBSD are also "mutual free community" operating systems, I believe. Plan 9 is, it's watched over by Bell Labs but only in an academic sense. PureDarwin as well, maybe... what do you think? It's a distro using the open-source Darwin kernel of OS X, which has inspiration and code from FreeBSD, and the userland is also BSD. Apple does do almost all kernel development, but then again companies fund almost all Linux kernel development.

I can see Free and NetBSD making the list. I am not so sure about Plan 9. Does Plan 9 thrive without Lucent support? Does it have a sufficiently large community to make it on its own? Let's look at it this way - the *BSDs are each separate and complete operating systems, entirely self-developed (with some sharing between Open and Net). How does the Plan 9 community compare with them? How strong is the developer team? How much hardware does it support? Linux distros piggyback onto various nominally separate developer teams - kernel, glibc, xorg, gcc, etc. and assemble the bits. The BSDs and Plan 9 internally develop much of that code themselves, and thus require larger and more active developer communities to thrive and survive.

PureDarwin - wow. That is an interesting question. My understanding is that they have yet to have a formal first release - just beta releases so far. So I am inclined to say it doesn't meet the criteria.

What about GNU Hurd? Culturally, I think it is similar to PureDarwin, with repsect to the Mutual Free Community Distro criteria. So I don't think one can include it either.

ReactOS I think also counts... well, I guess not, since it is trying to clone Windoze.

Heh. Actually, I wouldn't put it on the list because it is still alphaware. Part of the proof of having active, multiple developers and a vibrant supportive community is the ability to release a working system, yes?

Last edited by lseubert (2009-08-27 14:04:20)

Allan · 2009-08-27 14:13:13

lseubert wrote:

Allan wrote:
Careful when commenting on other distros:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … ng_Systems
Alan, what is dividing line on this one?

That reminder was mainly directed at comments made towards Gentoo, in particular about a specific dev...

FeatherMonkey · 2009-08-27 14:32:06

I'm curious why point 1? What makes a commercial involvement not you seem to contradict your self.
if...

thought about taking Debian off the list because they do have some vague commercial ties

What is the difference between vague ties and sponsorship by another? Are you implying that if RH pulled out of development then centos and fed would disappear? like wise Novell and OpenSuse(I beg to differ)?

Criteria one seems strange where and how do you draw the line with it? I'm sure you could find some kind of commercial ties/interests with just about any distro if you looked hard enough.

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2009-08-27 14:33:08)

lseubert · 2009-08-27 15:18:25

FeatherMonkey wrote:

What is the difference between vague ties and sponsorship by another? Are you implying that if RH pulled out of development then centos and fed would disappear? like wise Novell and OpenSuse(I beg to differ)?

If Red Hat ceased to be, the direct source derivatives such as CentOS and Scientific Linux would cease to be. Yes, I will state that. Those distros are entirely dependent upon Red Hat for their existence. I don't mean that as a criticism - just as a factual statement.

With Fedora, it gets a bit more fuzzy. But I still think Fedora is dependent upon Red Hat in a lot of ways, albeit not nearly as much as CentOS. For example, Fedora's web and FTP hosting is paid for by Red Hat. A lot of the developers who work on Fedora also work for Red Hat. Without Red Hat, they would have jobs elsewhere, and perhaps not as much free office time to devote to Fedora.

As for OpenSuse, is it truly more independent of Novell than Fedora is of Red Hat? If so, then it might qualify as a Mutual Free Community distro - I can be persuaded such is the case. However, it seems to me that OpenSuse and Fedora are both strongly linked to their parent commercial distros. I believe that OpenSuse is more serious about releasing a stable and standalone system, whereas Fedora seems to be more of a testing ground for new ideas for Red Hat, even though Fedora developers to try hard to make the system as stable as possible. But that doesn't mean that OpenSuse isn't dependent upon Novell/Suse.

FeatherMonkey wrote:

Criteria one seems strange where and how do you draw the line with it? I'm sure you could find some kind of commercial ties/interests with just about any distro if you looked hard enough.

Well, if it was easy to figure this stuff out, I wouldn't have posted looking for suggestions and critiques. As you point out, there are some tough ones. What I am trying to determine is what distros are truly created by non-profit, all volunteer communities. Additionally, I am looking for truly autonomous communities, rather than those that piggyback upon, or are in some way dependent upon, a commercial distro. And while I did ponder Debian as possibly insufficiently autonomous, in the end, I classifed it as a Mutual Free Community distro. If any commercial sponsor(s) withdrew support from Debian, it would continue to thrive.

Why do I fuss about excessively close association with a commercial entity? Sometimes, bad things can happen to good distros if they are too involved with with a commercial enterprise. Caldera OpenLinux is an extreme example. Back in the day, it was THE desktop Linux distro. It held a position in the Linux community then, similar to what Ubuntu holds now. But it was wiped out - its supporting community wasn't strong enough to sustain it after SCO pulled the plug. It was a shame too - I ran OpenLinux for a while, and it was stable, innovative, and stylish.

Now, do I believe that Novell will do the same to OpenSuse? Not especially, but then, I once never would have thought that SCO would go insane either. Do I believe that Red Hat would do something similar to Fedora? Unlikely, but possible. I once ran Red Hat 8 and had the promise of long-term support arbitrarily rescinded. Since then, I have tended to place more trust in non-commercial distros.

Ultimately, commercial Linux distros will do what is best for their shareholders, much more so than their users. Indeed, they are required to do so by corporate law. If I am a shareholder, that's great. If I am a user, that is usually not a problem - rather, it can be a boon; but occasionally, it is a bane.

Last edited by lseubert (2009-08-27 15:29:02)

FeatherMonkey · 2009-08-27 15:49:03

To me you got to the point here

..snip..Unlikely, but possible. I once ran Red Hat 8 and had the promise of long-term support arbitrarily rescinded..snip

Your criteria doesn't stop this, there is no guarantee, I for one do not believe that if either RH or Novell pulled out support they would suddenly disappear, sure it would cause some logistic problems and some members of the community would have to step up. But lets take opensuse as far as I know they hit the Open(As in OSS) better than a couple of others you're OK with. Afaik they have more commercial ties to gnome yet have a strong KDE development. So the commercial ties doesn't affect it's development model.

Then lets take the other example not being commercial is still no guarantee, lets say for example funtoo fills the gap and slowly more and more gentoo fans move over, forks happen it is the nature of the beast.

Determining what will and won't survive is evolution, and not predictable...

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2009-08-27 16:03:12)

lseubert · 2009-08-27 16:45:31

FeatherMonkey wrote:

I for one do not believe that if either RH or Novell pulled out support they would suddenly disappear, sure it would cause some logistic problems and some members of the community would have to step up.

Mmm, yes there would be a logistical scramble for server capacity and bandwidth which could be overcome. But would the communities otherwise step up and continue development? Fedora, OpenSuse , et al depend upon their parent commercial distros quite a lot. Yes, they have gradually developed more political independence over the years, moreso OpenSuse than Fedora; but both are still heavily resource dependent. That is a different thing.

FeatherMonkey wrote:

But lets take opensuse as far as I know they hit the Open(As in OSS) better than a couple of others you're OK with. Afaik they have more commercial ties to gnome yet have a strong KDE development. So the commercial ties doesn't affect it's development model.

True, the development model is unaffected. But is this not due more to the effects of free software licenses; than to genuine, autonomous independence?

Out of curiosity, which distros do you believe are more commercially dependent than OpenSuse, but which I ostensibly incorrectly approve of? Please let me know - the purpose of this thread is to sort such things out, as best as is possible. For example, OpenBSD remains up in the air, depending on a response to my expressed doubts about it.

FeatherMonkey wrote:

Then lets take the other example not being commercial is still no guarantee, lets say for example funtoo fills the gap and slowly more and more gentoo fans move over, forks happen it is the nature of the beast. Determining what will and won't survive is evolution, and not predictable...

While there are no guarantees, there are reasonably assessed probabilities. For example, we can reasonably conclude that there is a greater probability of cheetahs going extinct than cockroaches, within the next 50 years. I would submit that a strong, autonomous communal distribution, like Debian, has a significantly higher probability of long term survival than Novell SLE, or Red Hat, or Fedora.

Hmm, maybe I need to create my own Linus distro - "Eternal Communal Cockroach Linux - It Never EOLs on You!"

broch · 2009-08-27 17:03:42

@FeatherMonkey
The difference between Novell Suse and opensuse is in commercial part provided by Novell. If you take all Novell stuff including Novell employes, then there is not much left and I doubt that opensuse will develop as if nothing happened. Pretty much until opensuse would hire their own software development team, it would be gone.
I would assume that Fedora would be in trouble too although in much less extent. Debian/Ubuntu relation is a bit different, probably neither would be really affected if the other would die.

@lseubert
the criteria that you try to use are really impossible to apply:
IBM and HP and SGI and others contribute a lot to kernel development. Unless you run your distro without kernel, either you include Fedora, Ubuntu, Opensuse and so on or your citeria are rather foggy, based only on whatever you think fits best which is no criteria at all.

By the way, what "Mutual Free Community" means?

Last edited by broch (2009-08-27 17:05:43)

FeatherMonkey · 2009-08-27 18:01:55

Will they step up I'm not going to answer yes or no, broch thinks not I think either is speculating.

To use the example "if" removed well from what I've seen KDE development hasn't ceased yet Opensuse cut the development workforce. But then are we not getting mixed between the distros that do develop and those that just repackage? If we're saying that the contributions to the whole community will become less, for sure. Didn't centos come about due to the bleeding edge model of Fed.(I just think if it will survive(That is any distro) it will be as a fork or certainly evolved)

Though I do agree the deb/ubuntu community is a different ball game altogether.(Though who's not to say in 40(Some arbitrary figure) years time that if ubuntu disappeared debian would to if it depended on them too such an extent. If we're speculating I can see that happening)

It wasn't commercially dependant it was the OSS, opensuse includes very little non-open(Java, flash and a couple of other bits iirc), and doesn't have a non-free repo.

Personally it is your criteria but to me you would say Debian or Arch reach it but without non-free. I question the non-commercial involvement and just don't see how you can draw the line in the sand. As for speculating to what ifs sometimes the unusual happens.

I didn't think gentoo was going to have the troubles it had but it didn't stop it happening. Speculation is just that speculation.

Last edited by FeatherMonkey (2009-08-27 18:19:20)

Trent · 2009-08-27 20:35:32

lseubert wrote:

As for my creating a set of personal standards that fit Arch, and then trying to find others that meet that standard, mmmm, not quite. Do you see my avatar over there on the left? That symbol represents a political and economic philosophy know as "Mutualism". If you care to read the wikipedia article link, I think you will then see why I am interested in what free software operating systems qualify as communually developed.

Call me stupid, but I'm still a bit shaky. What do you hope to achieve by compiling a list of distros that meet these criteria?

I still think your criteria are a bit vague and unevenly applied; as others have noted, a lot of commercial work goes into every part of your Linux system, including the kernel. If you are looking for a distro with absolutely no commercial contribution, you simply won't find it.

lseubert · 2009-08-27 23:43:32

FeatherMonkey wrote:

Your criteria doesn't stop this, there is no guarantee

(In the out of context quote above which I am just now getting around to dealing with, the guarantee that FeatherMonkey refers to is the guarantee that a distro will not suddenly go EOL.)

I implicitly argue that commercial distros are prone to sudden EOL throughtout this thread. Allow me to make the implicit now explicit. Commercial distros and their dependent community derivatives are more prone to sudden EOL than a robust pure community distro. The average lifespan of a corporation is 50 years. Human communities enjoy much longer lifespans - the longest one presently running 200,000 plus years.

Note the qualifications I add here. The distribution must be communal, that is, multiple people working cooperatively, and it must have a healthy, energetic community.

Now, FeatherMonkey is right - even such as distro as this, has no guarantee of long-term survivability. But I would contend that communal is more of a guarantee than corporate.

FeatherMonkey wrote:

Will they step up I'm not going to answer yes or no, broch thinks not I think either is speculating.

Agreed. Some of this is speculative, albeit I hope thoughtful, as opposed to wild, speculation.

Other bits are not so speculative, but are open to argumentation. That would be the part where the following takes place: "Here are criteria A, B, and C. Which elements of Set Z match these criteria? Which ones are borderline?"

There are several separate lines of discussion going on here. One is about whether or not the criteria I proposed are valid. Another is about whether or not the criteria are vague. And yet another is about how to apply the criteria consistently in selecting a set that meets the criteria.

I suppose most of the people who find my criteria either invalid or silly or non-sensical simply refuse to post to this thread. As for vagueness of criteria, that is a good point, which I take up below. Consistently applying the criteria, to create an absolute black and white situation, where some distros are in while others are out? Eh, probably not possible - there are too many shades of gray in real life. Doesn't mean one shouldn't try though.

FeatherMonkey wrote:

I question the non-commercial involvement and just don't see how you can draw the line in the sand.

Since Trent raised this question as well, I'll answer both below.

Trent wrote:

Call me stupid, but I'm still a bit shaky. What do you hope to achieve by compiling a list of distros that meet these criteria?

To answer your question, I have to delve into politics a little bit. (Sorry forum mods.) Mutualist economic theory holds that complex tasks can be undertaken by smaller and less hierarchical organizations that is presently believed to be the case. Broadly speaking, both the conventional Left and Right believe that large tasks require large, hierarchical organizations, whether governmental or corporate.

Kevin Carson, one of the leading mutualist theorists, explores this argument in great detail in his book, Organization Theory. He cites Debian as an example of how large, complex tasks can be undertaken by organizations meeting mutualist criteria. (Yes, I know that Debian is, relative to some distros, if not hierarchical, then bureaucratic. But it accomplishes a herculean task with far less size and bureaucracy than is found in the corporate or governmental sectors.) My interest in this thread is figuring out what other free software distros share these criteria.

(For the record, Mutualism is not at all hostile to commerce, exchange, free markets, or profits - so long as those profits are ethically consistent with principles of private possession and the labor theory of value. See the wikipedia entry for additional details if you are interested - "Mutualism". Those who would like to discuss this subject further - please email me privately, or find a webforum outisde of Arch where this discussion can continue.)

Trent wrote:

I still think your criteria are a bit vague and unevenly applied; as others have noted, a lot of commercial work goes into every part of your Linux system, including the kernel. If you are looking for a distro with absolutely no commercial contribution, you simply won't find it.

Agreed - my criteria as posted were vague. The back and forth of this thread has helped me to sharpen them up. See the new definition below.

As for excluding all commercial contributions, no, I do not do that. You are right that such is impossible. Rather, I am looking for distros that are not excessively dependent upon any single commercial entity for continued existence. That is, a distro created by an autonomous volunteer community.

So, thanks to some great feedback and throught provoking posts, allow me to present some refined material:

Autonomous mutual community Linux distribution.

Criteria:

1. Not created by a commercial enterprise, nor dependent upon a single commercial enterprise for significant logistical and development support.

2. May be sold or given away. Regardless, a unifed version of the distro is made equally available to all.

3. Organizational structure is more circular or flat, than it is hierarchical or pyramid. That is, there are many developers who work voluntarily in cooperation, rather than taking or giving orders.

4. Engenders a strong, healthy community which assists in creating, maintaining, and supporting the distro.

Arch
Debian
sidux
LFS
DIY
Pardus
FreeBSD
NetBSD
Frugalware
live.linuX-gamers
GoboLinux
OpenSuse?
Fedora?
OpenBSD?
Plan9?
Pure Darwin?
Hurd?

What about Pardus? It is put together by a technical university in Turkey that is a sort of cross between MIT and the National Security Agency. Universities aren't quite corporate, nor are they entirely public. Does Pardus belong on the list?

csstaub · 2009-08-28 00:10:21

lseubert wrote:

Ranguvar wrote:
OpenBSD is very much a multi-developer project.
Yes, OpenBSD has multiple developers, but does the project thrive if Theo gets hit by a runaway cement truck? If it does thrive, then OpenBSD is on the list. If not, then OpenBSD is too dependent upon just one person, despite having multiple developers, and thus doesn't meet the criteria. Sorry - I should have made that more clear in the beginning.
(And yes - I assume that if Phrakture tried to lift a cement truck, failed, and was crushed underneath, that Arch would live on.)

You could say the same is true for Linux - what if Linus Torvalds gets hit by a truck next week?
There's simply no way to tell if the project is going to continue to thrive or not until it actually
happens. And if you're looking for a free as in freedom operating system than OpenBSD is
probably the best you can get - they use the ISC license for everything they can. It doesn't
get more free than that. They even refuse to provide binary (non-free) drivers for their system
and strictly oppose the signing of NDAs as was done by some Linux developers.

In addition to that, what about distributions that are not dependent on a corporation for their
survival, but a university or government entity? And what if a distribution was created by a
commercial entity, but does not depend on it and is mostly community-driven - how is it less
free or less community-supported than a distro that was created by a non-commercial entity?

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-27 00:12:18

"Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#2 2009-08-27 00:34:06

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#3 2009-08-27 00:40:44

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#4 2009-08-27 00:42:45

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#5 2009-08-27 00:47:48

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#6 2009-08-27 02:43:10

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#7 2009-08-27 02:49:03

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#8 2009-08-27 02:51:21

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#9 2009-08-27 02:53:34

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#10 2009-08-27 03:11:48

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#11 2009-08-27 09:59:31

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#12 2009-08-27 10:48:16

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#13 2009-08-27 13:25:56

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#14 2009-08-27 13:37:35

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#15 2009-08-27 13:55:22

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#16 2009-08-27 14:13:13

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#17 2009-08-27 14:32:06

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#18 2009-08-27 15:18:25

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#19 2009-08-27 15:49:03

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#20 2009-08-27 16:45:31

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#21 2009-08-27 17:03:42

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#22 2009-08-27 18:01:55

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#23 2009-08-27 20:35:32

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#24 2009-08-27 23:43:32

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

#25 2009-08-28 00:10:21

Re: "Mutual Free Community" Distro. Arch qualifies. What Others?

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