Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal
jukal writes "From ZDNet "Red Hat and IBM have expanded a partnership, with Red Hat bringing its top-end version of Linux to all four of IBM's server lines and with IBM's services and software divisions supporting Red Hat's software. "" The NYTimes also has a version of the story, as does the News-Observer.
I am quite pleased. As more and more open source project become so mature they can be run in a large corporation, the need to run on big iron emerges. This is the kind of deal that will enable Linux to nicely scale further into the corporate everyday life.
Stop the brainwash
Shouldnt we stop it. Just because somebody is successful, we cannot make it M$ of linux world. Ask yourself this
- Does Redhat violate GPL
- Do they refuse to divulge source code
- Do they steal code and then commercialize it?
Agreed RPMS are common but whats wrong. People who want tar gz always get it, its all there. Just because something makes things for lesser mortals easier does not mean that it is EVIL. User freindly does not EQUATE with evil , neither does sucess, the sooner people learn it the betterMy Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
RedHat produces several variations of its Linux distribution. You're most likely familiar with the one priced at $30 you can download basically free. The cost of some editions, however, reaches $2500. The version IBM is using retails for $800 I think (could be more). See it yourself at http://www.redhat.com/apps/commerce/software.html
SIG: HUP
.DEBs lack integrity checks - that means that the contents are not public/private encrypted. .RPMs have this ability. That is a very important ability in an internet setting.
.RPMs have their troubles, too.
That said,
Stop the brainwash
Seems to me I've seen a bunch of articles on companies opting away from MS products. Dell offer Linux, IBM offering Linux, Dell (and other companies?) offering Word Perfect instead of some variation of Office.
In my opinion, this looks like the start of a stance by companies against MS. Time more than ever for ALL Linux distros to be more user friendly. Don't get more wrong, I think Linux is a great thing, but I still use OS X because I get a stable OS, PLUS the ability to futz with *nix.
The Linux "collective" needs to start making Linux less configurable (yes I said LESS) for the average user. The average user just doesn't care about all the configurability of Linux... heck, I'm a slightly above average user and I don't care!!! When the learning curve is less steep for Linux, or when somebody offers a distro (Lycoris?) that has less of a learning curve (a sort of Linux Home edition), then Linux will make some major inroads into the home.
That would be great to see... because everybody should have access to the world of computers and everybody shouldn't have to buy a new one ever 2 years to keep up with the low quality stuff MS puts out.
-AIt has always seemed to me that there is more money to be made in services than RedHat has ever been able to squeeze out of them. Every hardware manufacturer of any significant size derives large percentages of their revenues from their Global Services (enterprise consulting) divisions so why couldn't Redhat manage it? IBM seems to think they can do it bu supporting and integrating the same products redhat was.
Perhaps the key is that the hardware manufacturers are offering the services as a value added feature of their core products. This raises the question, why did VA Systems abandon Linux based PC hardware in favor of becoming a software shop, and at that, not even one that provides Linux software integration consulting? Well, in the case of VA it was probably due to their content holdings, but again, if the combination of hardware sales and software integration services can work for IBM, why wouldn't it work for Redhat or (in the past) VA? It just seems to me that, while having IBM enter what is esentially a reseller agreement, is not the most lucrative means for generating a revenue stream from Redhat's distribution; although it does have vary low overhead, which is parhaps a key for redhat at this point.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
"Red Hat is the Microsoft of the Linux world."
Yeah, I can kinda see that. Compared to OpenBSD, Debian, or Gentoo, Red Hat seems bloated, bland, and corporate. When using the newer versions of Red Hat, I don't quite know what's installed on my system and I feel alienated from my computer and from my OS -- which is one reason why I don't like running Windows on my machines. I can't explain it, but Red Hat just isn't fun anymore. Lately, when I screw around with computers, I'd rather screw around with Gentoo or BSD.
But that's where the comparison between Red Hat and Microsoft ends. Sure, Red Hat can act unilaterally and piss lots of people off (GCC 2.96), but they're generally good corporate citizens. They make their ISOs freely available for download, even though they aren't obligated to do so (hell, even OpenBSD refuses to release official ISOs on their FTP site). They don't launch campaigns to embrace-and-extend Debian and Gentoo into existence. They don't charge K-12 schools assloads of money for site licenses and threaten to audit them if they don't pay up.
Red Hat's freely available, easy-to-use software is what enabled me to learn how to program. I'd always been interested in programming, but didn't know where to start and could never afford Windows compilers. Red Hat 5.0 provided an easy-to-use (by 1998 standards!) introduction to UNIX and Perl which ultimately led me to switch my major to CS. I know Debian is freely available, but try doing an FTP install over the phone line. I've since abandoned Red Hat in favor of Gentoo, but it's my experience with Red Hat that gave me the technical proficiency to install and manage Gentoo and, most importantly, to realize that Gentoo suits my needs better than Red Hat in the first place.
As much as I disagree with some of the design decisions that Red Hat has made, I think that their distribution is a fine product. I think RPM can be overkill for the casual user, but if you're an admin for a sizeable institution (I'm not, but I used to work for someone who was), and you've got Linux boxes scattered all over the place, Red Hat's package management is a good way to keep things syncronized. If I ever end up as a sysadmin in a similar situation, I'd very likely deploy Red Hat, just as they did.
Red Hat isn't perfect and it's totally legitimate to blame them when they do something that you think is dumb. But they aren't nearly as bad as Microsoft.
Steve
Lexmark is a somewhat owned by IBM. I still can't get my printer to go under Gentoo as the only drivers that come for the printer are RPM based binaries (rely on LPD not CUPS). My point is that we don't want a situation where many manufactures claim linux support when they only really provide RPM based distro support- I never knew a tgz and a detailed readme were so hard to organise! Clearly from my interactions with Lexmark they seem to not take RPM based distros very seriously, and, as lexmark has close ties with IBM, could this be a sign of things to come with other hardware manufacturers? Is the CUPS standard really all that hard to keep up with?