Distros Compared, Free Ed, and Making Money

The Linux Foundation has decided to offer their regularly priced $2,400 introductory course free of charge, but they're not the only ones responding to recent Linux jobs reports. In other news, Jamie Watson today compared and contrasted Debian, Mint (LMDE), SolydX and Tanglu. And finally today, Andy Updegrove has shared the steps to making big money in the Open Source business.

The Linux Foundation yesterday announced plans to offer their Introduction to Linux free "to anyone anywhere." This offering is an introduction to the new Linux Foundation Authorized Training Partner Program that will provide online Linux training for those interested. While not all courses are free of cost, "the Linux Foundation will continue to offer free Linux training resources, scholarships and other resources to ensure it is a rich resource of free Linux technical training for everyone."

In related news, FutureGov Magazine is reporting that the Rochester Institute of Technology is about to offer a minor in "free and open source software and free culture." The university is quoted as saying this is "for students who want to develop a deep understanding of the processes, practices, technologies, and financial, legal and societal impacts of the FOSS and free culture movements."

Jamie Watson is back at it again and this time has written up a comparison of Debian and three derivatives (LMDE, SolydX and Tanglu) including a handy feature chart at the end. He said:

The four distributions obviously have a lot in common; Debian is well known as one of the oldest, best established and most respected Linux distributions, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is derived from Debian, with a lot of the goodies which have been developed for the Linux Mint 'main' distribution added, and both SolydXK and Tanglu are derived from a combination of those two plus a good bit of work in packaging, repositories, updates, appearances and such. I think this is going to be an interesting exercise.

Andy Updegrove, technical consultant and writer, shared his "formula for launching the Red Hats of the future." In response to a piece from TechCrunch titled Why There Will Never be Another RedHat: The Economics of Open Source, Updegrove says the article "leaves out of the equation the two factors that will allow a business based on this model to attain a market leadership position." See that full post for all the details.