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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 one place RH probably beats Mandrake is in polish, in the UI and the packages but it's still a major sacrifice.
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.
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As someone who tried to upgrade from RH5.2 to RH7, but couldn't because the stupid installer did weird things to my hardware (ie. switch off my monitor) I doubt I'm going to upgrade to any version of Linux soon. SuSE did it to me too, but at least FreeBSD's installer didn't do that. Anyone else had that problem?
The fact that there are so many different flavors of linux has its pros and cons which we all know about. But why are they competing against each other? The open source community should be one group of like minded people fighting to make open source a viable alternative to closed source, and making it recognized as such to a large number of people. RedHat should try letting people upgrade from windows to RedHat for free. People who are already using Mandrake or SuSe know what RedHat is like and choose their current distro for reasons such as better hardware compatability, better packages, etc. They aren't going to switch to RedHat. I switched out of RedHat to Mandrake. And I'm planning on trying out SuSe.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I paid $80 for SuSE. I don't have to do that with RedHat--the ISOs are already free. Why would I want to switch? Obviously I have compelling reasons to use SuSE, or I wouldn't have forked over $80. Dumb move by RedHat in my opinion--just gives me one less reason to use their distro.
I'm thinking that the installers probably had trouble with such an archaic OS :)
I've been on the Red Hat upgrade path since 4.2, and in my experience, any time you want to move up a major revision number, your best bet is to back up anything you want to keep, wipe the disk, repartition, make a clean install, and restore from backup. I'm not sure what changed between the 4.x and 5.x series, but between 5.x and 6.x, they changed network config stuff, apache's location (iirc), the default window manager, and a bunch of other stuff. The 6.x to 7.x change was fairly radical too. They moved all the networking stuff to xinetd, moved the wm to Sawfish and Ximian, moved apache (again), switched to openSSH, etc.
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What kind of pressure can MS possibly exert if RH were to extend the rebate to Win OS users as well? MS can influence plenty of partners/customers, such as content providers, OEMs, and schools (not anti-MS necessarily, just saying that they do have a great deal of influence), but what can they do to a Linux company?
IANAL, but I can offer upgrades from anything I want for a product - in fact MS has frequently offered discounts for competitive upgrades. Eg from Notes to Exchange, or WordPerfect Suite to Office.
So I think the real reason for this move is clearly to win over current Linux users, not those of Windows. And as someone pointed out, this will hardly grow the market overall, but perhaps might do something for RH's revenue.
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What??? You mean I can't upgrade Win XP Pro to RedHat 7.3? Is it because Win XP sucks so bad that they don't even want to let the non-l33t people come up? ;)
And so we go, on with our lives
We know the truth, but prefer lies
Lies are simple, simple is bliss
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.
Especially if Linux makes a dent in the desktop market. (Microsoft isn't widly known for it's scruples... and it they start losing serious money and marketshare they might be tempted to side with the **AA's.)
And I don't want my distribution to go down in flames because of a bought-and-paid-for law.
So I'll stick to European distributions. (As if my sig didn't give that away already...)
At least until such a time as the US lawmakers get their shit together.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Why suse and mandrake. The two biggest desktop oriented linux distros cen be "upgraded" to the ... desktop sufficient at best RedHat? Almost osunds as bad as "upgrading" my debian to Windows 3.1
Windows users already have enough incentive to upgrade.
Ummmmmm, no. If you do a "Custom" install (i.e., not "Server", "Workstation", etc.), then you are given the choice of KDE, GNOME or both (as well as wm, fvwm, and E, if they float your boat) to install. When you are prompted for your X Configuration at the end of the install, you can choose your default resolution, whether to boot into graphical mode (gdm) by default, and whether to use KDE or GNOME as your default GUI. So cut the FUD.
"Disabled". Hah. All you need to do is check a bloody checkbox in your package selection.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
all you people complain about competition with MS (and yes, I agree with you on that) but then you turn around and you hurang RH for competeing!!
you have got to be consistent here, what does competition do? it puts weaker companies out of business and lets the creme rise to the top. one good thing about the Linux world is that there will always be competition as the GPL provides everyone with the same code and a lock out is impossable.
there is nothing wrong with what RH is doing.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> 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).
not infighting yet...but this being a market system, it won't be long before others do it too. Why do you think there are, say, more than one car company offering 0.0% rates? Why do you figure that when one airline lowers its rates, many others do too? Why do you think that when WordPerfect still existed, both it and Microsoft were offering competitive upgrades from the other's products?
If I have the choice between Mandrake at $40 and Red Hat at $40 and Red Hat offers a $10 discount. and (for whatever reason) I'm not going to download the iso from someplace, doesn't it make more sense to go with the Red Hat offering?
Other companies in this market are going to see it, and I have no doubt that there will be some pricing adjustments. The nice thing about a "Competitive upgrade" pricing model is that you get to charge full price and then, if someone takes the time and effort to prove that they are switching, give a refund. This is nicer than a straight price cut because you get full price for most of the software you sell, while giving the illusion that it is cheaper.
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Need I go on?
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Previous users of Windows ARE eligible for upgrades, if they also used Mandrake or SUSE. It's not just ANY users of Mandrake and SUSE though - it's only those who have purchased a retail copy of the OS, in a box, with a manual. RedHat might give me $10 back for purchasing RedHAt 7.3 after purchasing Mandrake 8.2, but I'm saving even more money by not buying either. In the UK, you could buy Windows 98 for less than the price of these two OSs and the rebate. Just goes to show it's not easy to please everyone :-)
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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.
Oh, how my trollish side comes out whenever i log onto slashdot......
1. Buy SuSe 7.3
2. Buy redhat, and get $10 dollar rebate.
3. Return both, pocketing yourself a whopping 10 dollars
easy money...
of course not
and to further clarify, you mus have the retail version of the "competing" distro to qualify. downloading a mandrake ISO is not enough to get the rebate.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I would guess that what is most important to them is still being around in five years time.
RedHat has repeatedly stated that most of their business comes from replacing other forms of *NIX, NOT Windows. This is entirely in keeping with that idea. In the short term the biggest threat to RedHat is not MS but other distributions because they are the people competing in *exactly* the same arena. This looks to me like an open source business behaving like a business, good news for the commercial future of Linux.
L
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!
Hello !
If RedHat "complies" with hardware, that's because they make the manufacturers pay for it,
which is only commercial and not better than Microsoft. One of the biggest reason to use Linux, contradictory with RedHat, then.
And the real compatibility is the *same* in all distributions, SuSE being even a lot better than Redhat. A friend of me has SuSE and I was surprised by the big list of supported TV cards.
But if you speak about "serious" use, as you seem to say, then the most "serious", professionnal distribution is *Debian*.
Conclusion, there is something for everyone, from begginner (Mandrake, SuSE) to professionnal use (SuSE, Debian) and experts (Debian) and this is good...
BTW to answer prescisely to your assumption I had to try Mandrake (latest version) and it was very good. It was like SuSE was 2-3 years ago "very good but not totally mature", while SuSE is now "mature" (Everything works perfectly)
The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance.
For me, numerous packages is not a selling point. I run Linux because I want precise control over what's running on my machine, whether it be a desktop or a server. I don't want layers upon layers of crud.
Example: You cannot install recent Redhat versions without installing sendmail, because cron needs sendmail, and a redhat install needs cron. But I don't want sendmail. In many cases I don't want cron. If I want sendmail functionality, I'll install something less gargantuan and less cumbersome. And if I want cron functionality, I'll install something substantially cleaner than the heavily-heavily patched Vixie cron that comes from redhat.
For me, the perfect "distro" (it's not even really that) is Linux From Scratch. Complete control over everything!
So, my choices are: pay $50 or whatever for redhat and get a $10 rebate, effectively paying $40, or.
Download redhat or buy it for media cost on cheapbytes, effectively paying $0.
Somehow I doubt this 'rebate' is going to sway many people...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Competition is the basis for most folks to get up and get innovating. This is the basis for most of the original antitrust law in the US. Not only does it get technical innovation, but it drives the price down in most situations. This is a good thing... I don't know if you noticed, but over the past year, Linux distros have started to get more and more expensive(box sets... not downloads). It is basically the same thing that food chains do: "We honor So&So Chicken's cupons!".
(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.
The reason I am using Linux now is because it is free speech and beer, and there's lots of options to choose from. And most importantly, it doesn't have all those commercial crap cramped into the OS and applications.
Standardizing Linux and making linux a better option is all well and good, but if I had to give up those freedoms I'd rather it not happen.
Don't quote me on this.
So if I download the ISO's and install RH7.3, they'll send me $10?
~ now you know
It's the Chewbacca Defence! It makes no sense!
Everone who has ever owned a computer and his brother have a Windows license. A competitive upgrade from Windows makes no sense. The base price already includes a competitive upgrade from Windows. Perhaps a competitive upgrade from OTHER versions of Unix might make more sense. RedHat REALLY competes with other versions of Unix, whereas people WISH it competed with Windows.
But I think your idea is slightly different - the "competitive" part means you only get $$ if you give up a copy of Windows.
Hellooooo Chewbacca!
First, Linux is not ready to completely 100% replace Windows for most people. The few who can switch probably have already. End gain: nada. But wait, there's more! Where does RedHat get the money to pay everyone's Windows tax? Hmmm... let's see:
1) Get the money from Venture Capitalists
Ya! RedHat gives everyone their Windows tax back, and then makes the money back on advertising! I'm sure the VC's will back it!
2) Subtract it from the cost of a RedHat distribution
Right-O. RedHat is already losing money selling CD's and support, how about losing even MORE money? And since CD's and support are money-losing ventures, they can make the money of off advertising. Yay!
3) Get the Money from Microsoft
This idea makes the most sense. Since Microsoft is already collecting the "Windows Tax", of course they'll have the money to give the Windows Tax back to people! I'll write my letter to Steve Ballmer today!
People coming off Windows need a good 12-step program, not a rebate.
Red Hat has very little hope of drawing people away from Windows. $10 or $20 bucks is not going to persuade someone to give up a $200 operating system for a $40 one. If they were interested in saving a few bucks they would have switched already.
IMHO, this move is brilliant for Red Hat. There are a bunch of commercial Linux distros competeing for a very small pie. If Red Hat wants to survive they need to take as much of that pie as possible. Does that suck for Mandrake and SuSE? It certainly does, but if they want to stay in the game, they need to find a way to hold on to their piece and even take a a bit of Red Hat's.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Actually at all the retail outlets around here, Red Hat usually has the lowest price distro on the shelf. For some reason, when it comes to SuSE and Mandrake they only stock these monstrous packages that contain 50 mail clients, 100 newsreaders, and at least 20 text editors on 7+ CD's and retail for $80+. However, they do stock the base Red Hat(slightly more packages than the download version) for $30 to $40.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
The typical EU doesn't care what browser they use or how they got it. Most don't even know what one there ARE using.
Sure they do.
Ask if they know what web browser they use and they'll answer "Well duh, AOL".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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
I had 0 problems on 3 different machines (two x86 boxes and an iBook) with Mandrake 8.0 and Mandrake 8.2. It just works perfectly for me...
You forgot to point out to him, that The Cathedral and the Bazaar was Eric's rant, not Linus'.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
- Simon 1:
- - OS: Mandrake 8.2 (linux) - www.mandrake.com
- - IP: 12.100.246.219
- - DNS: simon.sec33.com & simon1.sec33.com
- - Date system was loaded: Monday, March 25, 2002
- - Date system was last compromised: Sunday, April 14, 2002
- - Last compromised by: Owen
Held up for about 3 weeks... not bad
Looks like it did a bit better than the SuSE 7.2 box...
- Simon 2:
- - OS: S.U.S.E 7.3 (linux) - www.suse.com
- - IP: 12.100.246.218
- - DNS: simon2.sec33.com
- - Date system was loaded: Sunday, April 14, 2002
- - Date system was last compromised: Friday, April 12, 2002
- - Last compromised by: Ingus
Also, the link given to the Simple Simon site in the parent post is incorrect. The proper location is http://www.sec33.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
What the hell are you talking about?
There is nothing microkernel about Linux. It doesn't do message passing, it doesn't talk to device drivers through IPC, etc. It's your regular macrokernel. Search google for an early usenet flamewar between Torvalds and Tannenbaum for more information. Linux has modules, but that has absolutely zero to do with being a microkernel; the fact that the core of a microkernel is "small" and you can compile lots of stuff into modules to make your Linux kernel image "small" has nothing to do with being a microkernel.
I also have no idea what you're talking about when you say the "GNU macrokernel." Virtually all the actual GNU programs (eg, those programs that are listed on gnu.org and whose authors have assigned their copyright to the FSF) use the C library (except GRUB). Anything that uses the C library is not kernel programming - it may be systems programming or applications programming (as if this distinction makes any difference whatsoever), but it certainly is not kernel programming. Even glibc, which directly uses the kernel interfaces for syscalls (eg, int 0x80 on Linux), is not kernel programming.
how do you expand your market share? Easy. You get more people on your distro than other distros
Unfortunately, this happened in the Macintosh clone market circa 1996. It was easier for Power Computing et al to canabalize Apple's market than go out and get new customers. But canabalization thins the herd, so expect a loss of distros.
This may be necassary consolidation or short-sighted business practices, time will tell.
Lies about crimes
Corporations == political power. The more corporations that adopt Linux and OSS, the less likely OSS will have any laws put against it. If many large corps invest in OSS for all their systems, do you think they are going to let any laws get passed that prevent them from continuing to it? If Linux/OSS can push itself into large corporations, then OSS will be buying itself political power.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Everone who has ever owned a computer and his
brother have a Windows license.
i dont have one, and i've owned about 3 computers personally. i realize i'm not the normal user, but i'm not the only person i know of who has a computer and never had a real version of windows. hell i've never actually owned a copy of msdos.
-- john
In my experience, the basic level of support offered by Redhat with their boxed sets is completely useless. At least half a dozen other people I know have had the same results. Redhat says they offer support, but don't. It's no more than a bullet point on the box to get you to buy their distribution.
I can't comment on their higher levels of support. But their failure to deliver what's advertised for their basic level doesn't inspire confidence.
Bottom line- don't be swayed by "buzz" or a brand name. Buy what's proven- really, truly proven.
Reading the reply's i just noticed that either you are saying Ay or Nay against this subject.
Both sides have very valid points. On point of view is missing though...
Will this begin the period where UNIX began slipping? To offer an incentive you make your distro different, either easier or with more packages etc.. then you start making proprietary tools like YaST... then your distro will be offering things to attract corporate attention, either by making it's base different from the competition, and then your distro is fundamentaly different. Despite the fact that the LSB advocates a standard you just won't comply just to keep your market share..
Sounds familiar...
Hah!! ( [tm] Chris Matthews, for you Hardball fans )
The only Microsoft "licenses" I own are the ones for the copies of Internet Explorer that came with my Macs .. unless I secretely paid Microsoft tax on my intel motherboard or something .. I don't think this is uncommon among Linux users!
Except for the part where my entire Suse system would freeze any time it even tried to talk with my modem. I'm talking reset-button freeze.
Yes, it is a hardware modem and Red Hat (barring an odd, non-fatal quirk) has worked with it since 6.1.
Bottom line (often overlooked): different people, different needs, different distros.
The one that is best is the one that does what you need it to.
-r
(apparently I previewed this comment last night at 8:00pm: 'by r_barchetta on Thursday May 09, @08:00PM')
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
So the system was compromised before it was loaded? I think I'll ignore this testcase.
Gee, this $10 rebate was mentioned right on Red Hat's page and marketing, and if anybody just bought it (my boxed copy came yesterday) it has a sticker and form on the box. So you guys need a Register story to discover this?
Many software packages come with these rebates you know. Quicken came (or used to come) with an upgrade rebate. Adobe Photoshop Elements came with a competitive $30 rebate offer. Common practice!
How about the scoop on the REAL story: where are the goddamn Red Hat stickers? When I bought 7.0 it came with STICKERS! Do you think I shelled out $many dollars for my Red Hat 7.3 Personal box set for NOTHING? Where are my stickers!!!
I think the lack of stickers in the box is a clear sign that Red Hat is ready to file for chapter 11, or maybe even indicative of an Enron-style debacle. First the stickers go, next thing you know, Red Hat's backing the SSSCA and supporting Al Queda. What do you folks think??
This is a caution about dual boot systems:
... not at all what I had been expecting. I thought my hard disk had gone bad.)
Dual boot is quite useful, and I use it on my main system at work. But I don't really trust partition resizing tools. I've ended up with a few too many corrupt partition tables. So now I have a second hard disk. But if I install the boot partition on the second hard disk, then after awhile that installation fails at boot.
It took awhile to figure this out, but in the end I backed up my windows partition, reformatted my primary disk, with a boot partion, a swap partion, and a windows partition. Rolled the windows program back in (I used ghost for this). And then installed Linux. Now it works fine, without much problem. But figuring out what I needed to do was largely a matter of try something, wait til it crashes (sometimes a couple of months). Figure out what to try next. Repeat. And for the longest time, the only reliable way to boot Linux was from a floppy.
I'm not really sure that it would be appropriat to expect things to work better (though it sure would be nice). I am sure that it's appropriate to expect better diagnostics. Partition tabel corrupt is a terrible diagnostic to be the first warning sign. Particularly when it keeps you from even accessing the disk. (Interestingly, when I reformatted the system to put the boot partition on the primary disk, fsck magically recovered all of the missing data, and nothing ended up lost
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
# apt-get install redhat-rebate
...
Couldn't find package redhat-rebate.
Damn! First abiword, now this.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A competitive upgrade from Windows makes a great deal of sense.
You see, right now I think the retail version of RH 7.3 is selling for $60, give or take. So you offer a $10 competitive upgrade for anyone who brings in ANY evidence that they've used Windows. A CD, a case with a sticker, a printed screen shot, doesn't matter.
Sure Red Hat is giving up $10 a box if they do this. But, assuming they can still make money on every box they ship at $50, this gets them a ton of publicity that whatever they pay out in rebates could never buy otherwise.
Magazines would cover it -- and I'm not talking about the usual ZD rags, I'm talking about Time and Newsweek. It's a natural for thirty seconds of coverage in the business section of every local TV news show in America. If whoever does Red Hat's publicity is smart, they'd be making or fielding calls from talk shows and newspaper reporters.
I wouldn't expect they would sell all that many more copies of Red Hat with the Windows competitive rebate, but in the end it doesn't matter. One of the big obstacles to Linux right now is the public's complete lack of awareness that it exists, or if they know about it, it's some high end computer smart guy thing they see on those IBM commercials.
I don't know how much this could help, but I can't see how it could possibly hurt.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The best linux can do is to copy them, steal their ideas.
"Stealing their ideas" is such an ugly word. I prefer to call it "standing upon the shoulders of giants," or perhaps "building upon the prior work that Microsoft has so generously provided funding for."
Or, in the words of the Immortal Bard, "Plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize but please to always be calling it 'research.'"
Someone you trust is one of us.
The amusing thing is that I switch distributions frequently anyway. A second amusing thing is that they've raised their prices by more than $10.
This is a marketing ploy. I don't think that it will hurt the other distributions. OTOH, Red Hat has so raised their prices over the past year that they may fall out of my yearly cycle of upgrades.
It's an unreasonable habit, I know, but I tend to get caught by the newest, flashiest, distribution. At $30 it was no more than a book, so it was easy to justify. At $60, it had gotten to be a quite expensive book. One that had to have a lot of use to justify itself. At $120 it started to be a quite serious matter. That's a sizeable fraction of the cost of a computer. At $200 (the price of the current professional version) I start really seriously considering whether this is even worth thinking about. I mean, I hadn't intended to purchase this version anyway. I'm still switching to the new Mandrake. But I had been planning to get the 8.0 professional version. Now...
Well, the personal version has only gone up to $60. So I might get that, and then download the other stuff myself. Or I might just switch to a different distribution. But their pricing has just passed my comfort point. But does the personal edition have enough of the tools that I need for it to be worth purchasing? It's certainly true that I don't end up using most of the tools included in the professional edition. I've been paying to have them available just in case. But...
SuSE has a good reputation, but it also has (as I understand) a proprietary installer. (Just what is the license for YAST/YAST2?) But there are other distributions. Lots of them. Or maybe I'll give Debian another whirl, and try a bit harder this time (i.e., study up ahead of time on how to configure X Window and PPP.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I think this is a pretty underhanded move on Red Hat's part. This kind of thing doesn't help the Open Source cause at all. We are still the underdogs, and once we start fighting amongst ourselves it just clears the way for MS to come in and crush us. United we stand, divided we fall.
On the other hand, though, how much does difference $10 make? Red Hat Pro is $199, whereas SuSE Pro is $79, and I have a hard time believing that Red Hat Pro comes with more stuff than SuSE Pro.
Add to that the countless reviews that say something like "I couldn't get Hardware X to work under Red Hat, but it under SuSE it worked automagically", and I have to wonder if the Red Hat folks aren't focusing on the wrong thing. Up til now it seemed that the distros were competing solely on technology/features; Red Hat focusing on the US business market, Mandrake with their gaming edition, SuSE's assload of included packages, Slackware for the minimalists, even Rock for the old school Unix admins. This offer seems to take the competition to a different level. It feels more Marketing and less Tech, and the marketing approach has always felt sleazy to me.
Just offering a small rebate isn't so bad, I guess. What really bothers me is what this could become. I really hope the other distros don't follow suit here, as I think if they did it would just degenerate into a mud-slinging match, and that's the last thing we need. Linux is on the brink of mainstream acceptance. It would be really sad if we stumbled so close to the finish line, especially if it's because of something stupid like that.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
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...:)
Yup. I read that. Its pretty impressive really. I am thinking of putting up a mandrake box in my server farm at home.. Right now they are all rh...
-Ryan
You do mean that, in your experience Mandrake has been as problematic as Windows, right? Because in MY experience, Mandrake has been pretty damned solid. True, their pre-compiled 2.4.x kernels don't like my system very much, but the first thing I do with any distro is compile my own kernel anyway.
All in all, in my experience, Mandrake has always been rock-solid, while Redhat has been flakey.
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
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
Except that, legally, you have to send in your whole PC with the media and Key. You know it's true, Microsoft said so.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
While I understand a company first looks after its own survival, I think Redhat is shortsighted to first go after fellow UNIX customers, and now even fellow Linux users.
Yes, those may be easier targets, but in the end if no external users can be won (non UNIX) it is all in vain. In these times of oppression, we UNIX users (of which I consider Redhat and Linux to be part) should stick together. Healthy competition is no problem, even beneficial, but we must not forget what the real target is.
No Windows user who as invested in a ton of software (Office, games, etc) would ever switch to Red Hat or to any version of Linux if they were forced to give up that software (as in handing over the media and key). Abandoning it would be a waste of $$.
Now a SuSe user would be able to retain most, if not all, of their software, settings, data, etc so an upgrade becomes something thats within the realm of possibility.
"Fragmentation and infighting". Interesting choice of words. Fragmentation doesn't matter as long as everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels. Infighting (aka competition) is a good thing and should be encouraged... as long as.... everyone adheres to common standards and uses compatible kernels.
A reasonable amount of packages, all arranged by disk set so you can skip what you don't need (A, AP, N, X, GTK+ make you a Gnome workstation with all network tools, but no development, kernel, games, etc).
Plus it uses Matthew Dillon's cron, something which has never, ever had a vulnerability appear on Bugtraq in the years I've been reading it.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
-Joe
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Whatever the strategy, it still strikes me as a losing one.
When ISO's are so easily downloadable for free, or disks ordered for $5 from a third party, then trying to get people to change distros because of cost seems counterintuitive. Why pay $40 for a distro that can be had online for free or $10? For the $10 rebate? Hah!
I think the Register article was pretty clear in pointing out that Red Hat is not exactly going out of its way to tout this.
For what it's worth, I've been scouting out a hosting provider, and just about everyone uses Red Hat. Hell, in his biography, Linus Torvalds himself talked of using Suse at home and RH at work.
And Mandrake will probably be going bankrupt in the near future. Their finances just don't look too healthy. This is probably a good thing. Linux market share is just too low to support multiple distros, especially on the desktop.
On the other hand, competition does engender inventiveness.
Oh hell, it would just be nice to see some more support from software vendors for Linux. It would be nice to run quicken and turbotax and photoshop on a linux desktop. Hell, I'd just like to be able to install things more easily.
End of rant. I got more but I figure this is enough for now.
evanchik.net
That was one of the ones that lead to a corrupt partition table after a few weeks. Granted, it was a version from two years ago, but I haven't wanted to throw good money after bad.
(Not to mention the time, effort, and loss of data thtt was involved.)
That particular one hosed the windows partition as well as the Linux partions.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In order to gain marketshare, Linux must acquire NEW users, and avoid infighting.
How does this rebate offer dissuade new users from adopting Linux? Red Hat, SuSe, and Mandrake still cost the same to them.
Having 3 or 4 distribs or 2 or more desktops is the best way to promote competition and to ensure fitness.
So to promote competition, Red Hat should not exercise competitive business practices? I don't follow.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear