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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.
"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