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Red Hat Takes Aim at SuSE, Mandrake
gowen writes "The gloves have come off in the competition between commercial linux distributions. The Register is reporting that Red Hat is offering a $10 rebate to people who upgrade to Red Hat 7.3, including those who previously used Mandrake and SuSE. Previous users of Windows are not eligible for a rebate."
The whole point (usually) of offering competitive upgrades is to get someone to switch to your product, but in this case, I think it would be better to make that offer to Windows users (e.g., send in your authorized Windows media and key with a purchase of Red Hat Linux and we'll pay you the cost of the Microsoft tax) than it does to compete with other Linux vendors. This kind of internecine fighting is what let Micrsoft get a foot in the door on UNIX to begin with. The last thing we need is fragmentation and infighting in the Linux space.
What is your Slash Rating?
> What is more important to them - encouraging Windows users to "upgrade" to RedHat or taking existing customers away from other distributors
Neither. They're in business to make money selling an OS based on an open source kernel. They need as many customers as they can get. Apparently they think it's easier to get people already using Linux to switch to RedHat than to get Microsoft windows users to switch. I think that makes sense. It's not unethical, certainly not compared to some of the tricks other companies in this business use (think Microsoft, Larry Ellison).
Part of what you pay for when you buy a Redhat box is installation support. Users of other distros are less likely to make use of that support as they are already at least somewhat knowledgable about Linux, thus it's less costly for Redhat to provide to those users.
People migrating from Windows would be more likely to use that support.
(For what it's worth I'm a Mandrake user. I got my Mandrake CD from a local cheap CD burner, donated some money to Mandrake online and purchased Ximian Red Carpet premium service and I'm happy with all of it. I just see cost related reasons why Redhat would do this for people owning Linux and not Windows).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Stealing customers? Underhanded business practices? WTF?!
People. Red Hat is in business to make money. That's it. Nothing more. If you really think any of the commercial Linux distros have their top priority at promoting open source you are crazy.
My guess is that people aren't jumping from Windows to Linux as well as people had hoped. So, in that case, how do you expand your market share? Easy. You get more people on your distro than other distros. Makes sense to me. Then once you get them on your distro hopefully they'll keep buying YOUR upgrades. Competitive upgrades have been around a LONG time. I think it's a smart move for Red Hat to do this.
Bills have to get paid. Employees have to eat. That's the way things work.
Or you download the RedHat ISOs and not pay anyone but the media manufacturer? I think that might be the 'cheapest' way if all you are considering is money.
What?
Go Mandrake today!
Any which distro do you think Mandrake is based on? Are you not slightly worried that if RH goes down, then a lot of the development work that made mandrake what it is today, will also cease - therefore there will be less of the cool advances that RH made?
Anyway, if the company goes down, their software won't it's open and free. You can still install an up-to-date Kernel, a new version of Gnome or KDE, and whatever else you like on it. It's not like what would happen if MS stopped producing Windows updates.
Follow me
Well, that could be. If a company starts offering advantages to customers to switch, and these advantages have nothing to do with the quality of the product or service offered, such as cash rebates, they abdicate themselves a certain moral high ground. In my opinion anyways, uneducated as that may be.
But what do I know!
I won't use Redhat, or for that matter any linux distribution based in the US. It doesn't matter if they are good (and Redhat is) or if they offer me a rebate, or even a free boxed set.
The reason I won't is that I don't trust people like the senator from Disney (Hollings). I think there is a real chance that oss will be outlawed or at least restricted in nasty ways in the US in the next five years.
Even by slashdots low standards, this post reaches a new low in, twisted illogical reasoning. Disney and Microsoft are bad so you're going to punish Red Hat???? What if we extend your analogy a little? "I'm not going to have anything to do with Black people or Jews because with the recent wave of synagogue bombings, political gains by fascists, and anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, there is a strong chance they may be outlawed or restricted in nasty ways in the next five years. So I'm going to stick to White Christians until European lawmakers get their shit together." Does that make any sense?
If the political situation in the US is your concern, you should be buying Red Hat (and other US open source companies) products by the truckload so they have the resources to fight back.
Have done this a couple of times and it took me less than 15 min to upgarde.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
(Warning: the following information eventually devolves into a rant!)
:)
If anything, this only validates what many Mandrake and Suse users already knew - these two products are getting incredibly easy to use, even for the "newbies". Yes, Redhat may have a larger commercial share, but that seems to be more in the corporate world, at least from what I have seen.
Personally, I like Mandrake, which makes it very easy to show Linux to someone who is Windows-trained without scaring them too much (grin). Sure, they're not REAL Linux users, according to some, but frankly, thats not the point. I usually get non-geek friends to at least TRY Linux, and the more people that retain a good impression of it, the better! Imagine when NON geeks have a conversation like this:
Non-geek 1: Wow, I just got ANOTHER Outlook/IE/VB Script virus! I hate this crap!
Non-geek 2: Hey, that sucks for you! I'm using KMail on Mandrake Linux that a friend installed for me, that stuff doesn't even hit me!
Non-geek 1: Yeah, but you can't use your windows stuff anymore!
Non-geek 2: Sure I can - I can do something called "dual-boot" so I can use Windows or Linux -
I don't have to give up Windows just to try it!
Etc, etc. If Mandrake, Redhat, and Suse users care about getting more people into Linux, I think we should concentrate on pushing the dual boot issue, and "interoperability", the main reason being that the more "user-friendly" (and yes, I hate that term too) we can make a Linux Desktop, the longer they will stay in the Linux Desktop (besides, sooner or later, they'll need the space Windows is taking up for MP3s, Files, etc
The Red Hat rebate is a nice feather in the cap of Mandrake and Suse, but I think they should have been giving it for WINDOWS users, not as an upgrade, but as a "Use us too!" kind of thing.
Part of what you pay for when you buy Red Hat installation support. People who already own a Linux distro are unlikely to need it so it seems reasonable to pass some of that saving back to them.
Windows users on the other hand are more likely to use that support.
It seems to me that Redhat aren't targetting other distros so much as passing some savings on to those who already know Linux to some extent and therefore will be less of a drain on Redhat Support.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
It wasn't a beta, it was a fork. Forking is what you do when the maintainer drops the ball. HTH,
I do not see anything wrong with this. What notion of reality is everyone subscribing to wherein a rebate is a bad thing?
This is not stealing customers, sorry. It is giving a rebate for an upgrade which, as someone else pointed out, is probably due to the savings in technical support by non-newbie customers.
Second, I own RedHat 7.2, now I own RedHat 7.3. I get $10 back. Thanks, RedHat. If they did not give a rebate you would complain it cost too much.
Next, someone complained about ripping up your manual - it is your old manual they want the cover of. Read the directions - "eligable product's manual" and the eligable product is from the list, i.e. old verions of RedHat or SuSE or Mandrake.
Now, RedHat is a business and you just bought a box with paper and CDs in it. Not a religion or a political agenda. Sorry to rain on anyone's parade. I got $10 bucks - yay! If you buy RedHat, you can get $10 bucks back, too. Or not. Have fun.
Finally, the real complaint is why does this version not have the free stickers of previous editions!@!?
There goes my karma...:)