Red Hat Announces Product EOL Calendar

BrunoC writes "Looks like Red Hat is getting a little Microsoftish and is quietly introducing its brand new 12-month-only Errata. Quoting The Reg: 'Red Hat's current death list EOLs RH 7.1-8.0 at the end of this year, while 6.2 and 7.0 get theirs as of the end of March.' You can read the whole article here." I don't see how this is "Microsoftish" -- the code Red Hat creates or includes is still GPL, and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)

Comments

Well had they posted MY story instead....

[Anonymous Coward]

This ISN'T microsoft-ish. Microsoft atleast supports their products for a little while. What this is, is a company screwing the living hell out of the community that's supported it. I've sat here and sold personal version after personal version alot with errata accounts to clients because a) cheaper b) would be supported for quite some time with good security updates and wouldn't always require upgrades to continue to use their other products.

Now I have to turn around and tell them that Redhat changed it's game plan and convert each one of these clients over, or let them continue to pay me to constantly upgrade their network just to keep them within their errata entitlements. I for one....basically said to hell with redhat about 5 hours ago (incidently right after I submitted my story that /. apparently didn't like). I've started installing Gentoo on my workstations here already and within the next 4 weeks my redhat boxes will be gone as well.

Face it people, the people like "us" have made redhat and they just turned their back on us for the corperate world.

Don't get me wrong, I have NO problem with end of life, but 1 year for what's there now. The woman I spoke with at Redhat (yes I did research it directly with the company not just reading what nimrods say) she said that after this first round, there's going to be another change. Anyone using personal or the "free" version (and probably the professional) will ONLY be eligable for errata during the time that the release they are using is current. As soon as they release another version, errata for the older is gone. In other words, since redhat releases usually twice a year....that would me 2 upgrades a year just to keep yourself up2date. Screw that.

Re:Microsoftish ?

[Pros_n_Cons]

You mean we can't download a free product and suck down bandwith from the company for the rest of our lives?! REVOLUTION! Maybe some people haven't noticed but Mandrake who we thought was doing great is all but dead, how Redhat pays thier bills I have no idea. Look people, It's time we allow some of these open source companies to ern some money, they have done alot for us and are still doing more than just about any other company. The only companys I can think of off the top of my head that do more for the people are charitys and ones funded by tax dollars. The only thing I would ask is that, when I buy redhat 7.3 the errata will last untill redhat 8.3. I look at everything inbetween as a sort of beta software, I have no problem spending $50 every year and a half, but not every 6 months.

Re:Not a fair comparison

[flacco]

I sure hope to hell someone at red hat reads and takes to heart the parent.

It was the availability of a cheap base price and an affordable RHN subscription that got me the green light to replace our NT servers with Red Hat servers. I expended a lot of political capital making arguments about savings in maintenance and deploring the Microsoft upgrade treadmill. Management was suspicious but in the end trusted my judgement as the "expert" opinion.

I'm going to look like a fucking asshole if red hat puts us on the same high cost / upgrade treadmill program that I convinced everyone we were getting out of.

Note to red hat: continue to provide an affordable RHN subscription and don't force us to upgrade our servers every 12 months. If you do, during one of those upgrade cycles, you will find yourselves alongside MS in the dustbin, and we'll move to another distro. Or, worst case scenario, management will no longer see the monetary benefit and decide to return to the comforting familiarity of Microsoft's eager clutches, and I'll be "that dick with no sense of judgement" for the rest of my career.