Choosing software (was Re: [Hudlug] Fwd: FOSS community, disabled ...)

[Tim Bray]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> Linux is linux.  If we can't, between us, cope with whichever distro he would 
> like to use, then we should be ashamed.  It bears asking, though, why he 
> particularly chose that distro.  We have to remember that it is not as easy 
> for Michael to catch a demo of other distros, so it may be that his choice is 
> the only one he knows anything about.  I don't know what can be done about 
> that.

Not to do with Michael in particular, but I recently told a customer
that I would only support their systems if they changed to Debian.

They were using Fedora Core 4 because that is what their ISP said they
should use.

The reasoning was not because there is anything wrong with FC4, but
because I wanted to be able to support them rather than spending a lot
of time getting tripped up by things that are slightly different.  Also,
 if I'm supporting it, I know they will ring me when it goes wrong.
With Debian, I know I can set it up so well it is very unlikely to go wrong.

Equally, if the customer had come up with a compelling reason why they
wanted FC4 rather than Debian, I would have let them stay but charged
more money to cover me having to spend more time on their products.

At the end of the day, its all 90% the same.  Just slightly different
ways of doing the same thing, and different ideas fit with different people.

Tim