Modify Colors
The Proper and Improper Use of Versions
Engadget recently found a supposed screenshot of the Windows 7 installer, offering the choice of Windows 7 Ultimate, Business, Home Premium, Home Basic, or Starter. (Presumably this is a screenshot from a build after the public beta, since I didn’t see this there.) I really hope this is a bad joke, not a real plan to have SIX versions of Windows 7, not including Server and Home Server. Regardless of this screenshot’s legitimacy, I think it is important that we think about when multiple versions make sense and when they don’t, so that open-source projects don’t fall down the same hole that Windows has.
As far as I am concerned, the only case where it is acceptable to have multiple versions of the same software is when the use of that software is significantly different and disconnected from other uses. For example, if you want to make a version with a custom interface for netbooks in addition to a desktop edition, that makes sense, because you use a netbook in a fundamentally different way than you use a normal computer. Likewise, a server version of your software is also very logical, since you use a server in a completely different way than you use a desktop or a netbook.
Where it doesn’t make sense to have multiple versions is when you are just checking the box for which features to include. Having multiple desktop versions for home users, for example, doesn’t make much sense, since all you are doing is confusing the user. I should be clear, however, that I consider Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and Xubuntu completely different pieces of software and not versions of each other, since they offer a completely different user experience.
This leaves one big question: what about a specific version for enterprise desktops? On one hand, the enterprise and home desktops have basically the same interface. On the other hand, enterprise users and home users often have different uses for their computers. If your enterprise version is different at a base level (i.e. a significantly different kernel), it makes sense to make it a separate version. If it is really just a few user-level features you changed, there is no reason to make it more than a checkbox at the time of installation.
In other words, use versions where you need them, but avoid them anywhere you can. It isn’t that hard.
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jg – Think about it this way: If you sat an average computer user down in front of Kubuntu and Ubuntu and asked them if it was the same operating system, they would say no. If you sat the same person down in front of Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate, they would say it was the same.
Windows 7 Ultimate, Business, Home Premium, Home Basic, or Starter = five, not six versions.
>I consider Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and Xubuntu completely different
>pieces of software and not versions of each other
I don’t know why you consider that to be true. After all, you can easily install KDE and XFCE (and their apps) in Ubuntu. You can install Gnome and XFCE in Kubuntu. You can install Gnome and KDE in Xubuntu. They really _are_ “the same thing with different features” — specifically a different default desktop automatically checked off during your installation. The proliferation of distros that are simply a different default desktop automatically chosen for you, is exactly an example of “needless versions” that you’re talking about. People should stop making versions of distros with different default desktops/apps, and instead improve a given distro’s installer options, like making it even easier to choose the default desktop at install, and check off which individual apps you want to install _before_ the distro even starts partitioning the hard drive.
That’s a much more productive use of time. Fortunately companies like Redhat and Suse are moving towards an automated way of doing “distro customization” rather than making a never-ending cycle of separate versions like Ubuntu has.
The problem is not the different versions perse but the different costs, and the ability to convert/upgrade. You can turn Ubuntu into Kubuntu with relative ease, and the difference between a Kubuntu developer edition vs Kubuntu Enterprise vs Kubuntu Home, would be say… kdevelop vs krdc vs kde-games, regardless you can easily convert one install to include the tools of another if you need them. with windows you have to hope you made the right choice the first time.