Have We Passed Peak Distro?

There have been a lot of news reports and blog posts that have been making waves in my pond lately: the too many Linux distros argument. I actually chimed in on this topic a few years ago by contributing with a post about how the landscape of Linux distros are like a garden. A garden of heirloom tomatoes, where each distro has a few weak areas and one or two exceptional qualities.

I think the logical conclusion to that discussion turned out to be The Linux Luddites podcast: where Joe, Paddy and Jesse reviewed about forty(?) distros. They came to the broad and obviously glaring conclusion that these distros are out there because they scratched an itch. Unfortunately, most of the distros were not an actual maintained commercial solution, current, or well tested. I think the tomatoes metaphor should actually be turned into the crab apple metaphor.

Conclusion? Freedom. Duh.

Question: is the future of independent Linux distributions forever going to wane now that we have some clear successes like Ubuntu/Debian, Fedora/Centos, and Arch?

Have we passed peak distro?

Jed Reynolds

Jed Reynolds has been known to void warranties and super glue his fingers together. When he is not doing photography or fixing his bike, he can be found being a grey beard programmer analyst for Candela Technologies. Start stalking him at https://about.me/jed_reynolds.