one thing i find anoying is

[Eric Dunbar]

On 03/05/06, Andrew Zajac <arzajac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/3/06, Matthew Palmer <mpalmer at hezmatt.org> wrote:
> >
> > The problem is that Linux is not a single entity.  When you support
> Windows,
> > you need to handle maybe a dozen possible ways to configure your network
> > settings.  With all the different distributions/desktop
> > environments/optional programs available, there's a *scary* number of
> > different ways to do that same task in Linux.

> As for more intricate areas of the operating system, I don't buy the
> argument that all linux distributions are different.  If I expect a company
> to provide me with "linux support", I expect GPL-compatible applications
> distributed in source form, and not some binary-only packages that only work
> on Red Hat 8.1.  Let the individual distributions take care of making the
> tarball work out-of-the-box.

And, which poor support agent at the ISP is going to help you compile
those apps, and, even better, am I going to have to pay more on my ISP
bill to support those Linux users who can't figure out how to connect
(which probably means they're in over their head)?

> I think is that a lot of people who would otherwise "support" linux don't
> really get that this is about software freedom and that is pretty easy to
> do.  Just release the source.  You don't have to do anything else.

That's not support. That's "do it yourself" which is exactly where we're at now.