[CoLoCo] Webmin???

[Scott Scriven]

* Kevin Fries <kfries at cctus.com> wrote:
> ahh nuts, here we go again.

Heh.  Sounds like you know this dance?

> Linux is supposed to be about choice, but the Ubuntu distro ...

Ubuntu lets you do whatever you like, including installing webmin 
from upstream.  If you want Ubuntu packages for it, you are free 
to package it yourself.  The difference is a matter of who 
accepts responsibility for it.

A distro is primarily about convenience, not choice.  It saves 
you time otherwise required to research available options, build  
them, and integrate them into a usable system.

Some free software isn't included in distros, of course.  Usually 
it's either because it hasn't caught enough attention to get 
packaged, or because it just isn't very good.

There are about a thousand active Debian maintainers, last I 
heard.  They are some of the smartest and most generous people in 
the free software community.  None of them care enough about 
webmin to include it any more.  Does that mean anything?

If you want the ultimate in choice, install everything from 
scratch.  It's time-consuming but not otherwise too bad.  It's 
educational, and can even be entertaining.

> I am being told what to run

In an odd sort of way, yes.  The single biggest weakness of the 
free software world is that sometimes it inflicts *too much* 
choice.  I mean, look at Gentoo for example.  Do you really care 
what compiler options are used to build your applications?

One of the driving forces behind Ubuntu is to identify the best 
software, best practices, and best ideas, and make them default.  
The user doesn't have to research and select options unless they 
want to.

The available choices are not limited, because the user can 
always go upstream or third-party to do things the distro does 
not provide.  But there are still fewer choices involved, because 
fewer choices are inflicted onto users who don't want them.

That said, Ubuntu still provides a great deal of choice.  It has 
about 20,000 packages representing the best of the free software 
world, and mechanisms to help you add more if you need something 
it doesn't include.


-- Scott