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

lseubert · 2009-08-28 00:54:50

csstaub wrote:

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.

Agreed. Loss of a founding leader can be an acid test for a software community. Some handle it well, while others do not. Debian and Arch handled it well, while Gentoo has struggled.

As for Linux, there are some pretty well respected and capable developers whom I think could fill Linus's shoes. Morton and Koah-Hartmann come to mind. There are others. These days, Linus does less coding and direct project management than he once did. Mostly, he now does code review and aggregates checked in code from trusted lieutenants. See the latest Linux Foundation Linux Development Report for details.

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.

Agreed. OpenBSD is exceptionally free, if not copyleft in a way that Stallman prefers.

My ignorance is in not knowing how dependent OpenBSD is upon Theo de Raadt. Yes, there is a good sized team of active OpenBSD developers, but is Theo essential to the operation? Is he the capstone of the arch? A similar question arises with Volkerding and Slackware.

In addition to that, what about distributions that are not dependent on a corporation for their survival, but a university or government entity?

Yup. I asked that question about Pardus. Waiting for some replies on that one.

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?

If a distro was once created by a commercial entity, but later became an autonomous distro, then in that respect it meets the criteria. PCLinux OS imight be an example of this - once heavily derivative of Mandrake/Mandriva; but less so now. However, given its dependence upon Texstar for packaging, PCLinux OS seems to fail the decentralized community criteria.

Trent · 2009-08-28 01:00:05

@lseubert: thanks for the explanation. I think the definition is much clearer now.

atomkarinca · 2009-08-28 01:57:04

lseubert wrote:

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?

Because the development of Pardus is highly dependent upon the hired developers, I guess it doesn't belong to the list. Yes there are non-dependent developers and a large community but not everything they want gets into the distro. And actually it's not put together by a university, rather by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey).

csstaub · 2009-08-28 14:53:36

Thanks, that answers my questions.

lseubert · 2009-09-01 01:32:16

After some additional digging around and investigation on DistroWatch.com, I came up with the following list:

Arch
CRUX
Debian
DIY Linux
FreeBSD
Frugalware
GoboLinux
Linux From Scratch
Lunar Linux
Momonga
NetBSD
OpenBSD
PLD Linux
Puppy Linux
sidux
Source Mage
Tiny Core Linux

Arch had its roots in CRUX and PLD Linux. I am impressed that those two are around yet today. Two source based distros are still kicking, albeit not as famous as Gentoo - Lunar Linux and Source Mage. Frugalware, Puppy, and Tiny Core are the wee thriving distros. Debian and sidux round out the Debian and Debian derivative contingent. The BSDs just are. GoboLinux and Momonga are community distros from Brazil and Japan respectively. DIY and LFS are for, well, the DIYers.

As best as I can tell, that's it - the list of Autonomous Mutual Community Operating Systems.

oli · 2009-09-01 13:58:16

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...

BSD aka from a patchset for original UNIX (free until 1979, AT&T later changed the rules) to the point of a free operating system (about 1992-1994). There was code from Bell Labs UNIX in BSD and vice versa (about 6 files in BSD ). But if you're referring to the mere idea (userland, hierarchy, the whole structure of the OS per se), than even Linux isn't "free" according to this logic.

The story about "commercial" UNIX explained: http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/ … rkmck.html

Ranguvar · 2009-09-02 07:47:59

If the other BSDs are included, so should DragonflyBSD
And what then of DesktopBSD and PC-BSD, the two main user-friendly BSDs? I _think_ the former is community, but the latter is backed by a company.

We also have BeOS-likes to consider, like the community project Haiku. BeOS was commercial, and Haiku is "inspired by" BeOS, but it doesn't intend to clone BeOS and doesn't contain code from the closed-source BeOS. It is quite functional in a number of respects, and I think it should be included.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-09-02 07:49:50)

bangkok_manouel · 2009-09-02 08:13:30

you may want to look at http://exherbo.org/ too.

ornitorrincos · 2009-09-02 10:16:16

umn, T2?
http://www.t2-project.org/

Arch Linux

#26 2009-08-28 00:54:50

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

#27 2009-08-28 01:00:05

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

#28 2009-08-28 01:57:04

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

#29 2009-08-28 14:53:36

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

#30 2009-09-01 01:32:16

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

#31 2009-09-01 13:58:16

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

#32 2009-09-02 07:47:59

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

#33 2009-09-02 08:13:30

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

#34 2009-09-02 10:16:16

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

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