On Tue 16 Nov 2010 13:06 +0100, Heiko Baums wrote:
Am Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:54:23 +1000 schrieb Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org>:
It is true as long as the developers say it is true. Just because I tell GM their car is an aeroplane does not mean they will start flying.
Wrong. It is true as soon as a distro becomes more and more popular. And this is the case for Arch Linux. As long as a distro is unknown and only used by a few people, mainly its developers, this distro may only be from the devs for the devs. But as soon as it is mentioned together with and equivalent to the other big distros and gets more popular this is not true anymore independent from what a single developer says.
Otherwise you should write a big note on the homepage and/or the download page that this distro is free but not meant to be used for the public. "Feel free to use it but don't expect anything. This distro is only meant to be used by us developers." Or something like this. Maybe a bit exaggerated.
You're right. A lot of open source software does have that no guarantee, no liability disclaimer. Maybe it should be made more obvious. Anyways, Arch Linux isn't bound by any unwritten or unspoken contracts saying that it must deliver a certain level of support after reaching a certain popularity. If you want that support, then go a head and contribute the resources. I really don't forsee the distro signing any support contracts though.