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On Sun, 2008-05-11 at 00:00 +0200, Florian Philipp wrote: |
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> Yep, gentoo.org really seems to have been created from devs and users |
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> for devs and users. There is nothing like a "Features" page or "Why to |
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> choose Gentoo" for newcomers. Heck, you have to search hard to even |
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> learn whether it is suitable for desktops or servers! Just compare |
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> ubuntu.com with gentoo.org, for example. The difference is striking. |
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I think you hit the nail with that one. The difference between |
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ubuntu.*com* and gentoo.*org* is just that. Whereas Ubuntu, or rather |
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Canonical, is a for-profit company that actually has a commercial |
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objective, a big budget, full-time paid developers, professional support |
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services, many times more resources and staff who actually have degrees |
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in marketing it should come as no surprise that ubuntu.com looks the way |
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it does. As much as Canonical wants you to believe that Ubuntu is a |
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community, Ubuntu is in fact a brand and they work very hard and no |
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doubt spend a lot of money promoting that brand. |
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OTOH, Gentoo is a group of volunteers. Is it even a non-profit |
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organization anymore? No, or hardly no, budget. No market research, |
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access to professional art or artists, public relations staff, etc. etc. |
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A more fair comparison, would be that of Debian. Now if you compare the |
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front page of gentoo.org with debian.org they are not that dissimilar. |
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Similarly Debian is regularly being criticized for late release and, |
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just as Gentoo, every once in a while someone will post a blog or start |
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a thread about how Debian is "dead" or "dying". |
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Big deal. Let's face it: the all (mostly) volunteer-based distros are |
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never going to have the flash or press coverage as your Ubuntu or your |
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Fedoras. And it can be argued that they're not going to be as popular. |
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But I would hope that their main goals is not to win popularity |
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contests. I would agree that concerning Gentoo's home page are may be |
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areas of improvement, but to compare it to Ubuntu.com is not exactly |
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balanced. |
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-a |
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-- |
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