Shouldn't there be less Linux Distros and derivatives

Hello Howard,
If Mint were to go away (which I do not believe is going to happen.) I would suggest Ubuntu. It’s what Mint is based upon and uses same packaging system etc. You would have to install some things that Mint comes with but it’s a good distro.

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Does anyone have updates on Mint’s situation?

Haven’t heard anything. AFAIK they’re continuing development as usual.

This quote referred to coming and going of distros.

It works the same way as evolution. People see niche opportunities and develop a distro. If it spreads like covid it survives. If people stop using a distro it dies, because its environmental niche has disappeared.
Same applies to apps, ie to just about all free software.

The success of free software has proved that an evolutionary approach is a better way of achieving a good collection of software. Try it and see is a better maxim than corporate design.

@Akito saw this immediately. He asked " Who decides" . He knew the answer , " noone decides" , because it is entirely opportunistic, just like biological evolution. Noone decides how covid is going to evolve, it just takes every opportunity it can get. We all know how succesful covid is!

Regards
Neville

Evolution by artificial selection… i.e. Unity would still be very much in evidence, it had a healthy ecosystem that it was thriving in, but “god” (Der Fuhrer Herr Shuttleworth) cut off its lifeblood… I’d still be using it today…

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Yes a corporate entity can interfere with adaptive radiation of software and most times interference accelerates extinction. Red Hat have survived so far. FreeBSD seems to be hanging on.
It is the small-camp efforts that I like - Solus, Void, …

I assume Unity was open source. Why did not some other distro pick it up? Open source is the key to software evolution.
Neville