Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat 9 To Be Released March 31
Garfunkel writes "Looks like Red Hat is breaking tradition and skipping 8.1 and 8.2 and jumping directly to 9.0 RHN subscribers
get it a week ahead on March 31st. Available to the rest the world a week
later (April 7)." The website refers to the upcoming release simply as "9" -- which doesn't rule out future point releases, but could it be?
9 instead of 8.1?
Could this be an early April Fool's joke?
So far, point releases have had useful enhancements, while major releases have redone everything and made life miserable. (e.g. using xinetd and broken a gcc in 7.0, metacity stubbornly by default in 8.0)
Hopefully this is just a marketing decision.
So essentially Red Hat upgrades from 8 to 9 in ~6 months. No wonder no one wants to write general-release commerical apps for Linux .. by the time they develop & test their product, the distro essentially discontinues the release & doesn't support it. At this rate, I don't think we will ever convince developers of some great software (Adobe, Macromedia, etc) to port to Linux. Way too much support-related cost involved.
But I'm sure that there are some really excellent features packed into 9 to make it worth being a full version upgrade and not a point upgrade (uhh.. not)
It's been pointed out on the beta list that 7.0 was just called 7 when it came out. That didn't stop a 7.[123] from appearing later.
I've always thought that versioning should be more related to features & point releases than anything external, like "marketing".
I see a few reasons for the "9" over 8.1
I'd really like to see a list of "new features" so I can decide for myself. :)
Uh, because being a subscribed user has its perks?
It's not a scam. If you don't want to pay, then don't. If you want to pay, then you'll not only get things a whole week ahead of time, you'll also get support.
What on earth does this have to do with "the cult of Linux"?
people are retarded and must have the newest version number, or the fastest clockspeed - even if that doesn't necessarily denote "better"
I would have thought that the linux crowd would be smart enough to be above that... which isn't to say that they aren't - perhaps it is the sales and marketing people at redhat that are retarded here.
They should just step it up to 34 and show their customers that all the others suck.
(of course nothing should ever go past version 42)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Historically, RedHat has always guaranteed that all .x releases will be binary compatible with their major number. However, I don't recall any major changes with gcc & glibc. Is there some other change that would make this release not be binary compatible with RH8?
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
Additionally, Redhat wants to make some money and the subscription model isn't a bad one. If you want to be the last on the block to have it, you don't have to pay anything. But if ya want managed updates, early access, and whatever other perks they throw in then ya pay the fee.
--------
Free your mind.
After being a loyal Redhat user since 1997 (When I switched from Slackware), I am probably going to move on to SUSE, or Debian, based on RH's crappy implementation of KDE. I am not going to pay good money ( Yes, I usually buy the box set) for a distro that does not include an up to date, correct implementation of KDE. And don't get me started on Apt get vs. RPM.
Greg
Um, I wouldn't call selling a legitimate product a scam. You seem to believe that Redhat is obligated to provide ISO's for you free. Why?
-BrentIf you're a RHCE, the release schedule of RHAS is probably more relevant to you than the release schedule of RedHat's regular Linux distro...
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
I bought Redhat 8.0 a few weeks ago (it had been out for some time before that, of course) and have been pretty impressed with the completeness of the package and the work they have done on adding some consistency to the configuration apps bundled.
However, I can't really see what Redhat are going to put in this release to justify a +1 version upgrade.
I agree with other posters that frequent version changes will threaten the release of 'industry standard' apps on the RH Linux platform, and as such Linux in general because of the perceived volatility of the environment.
However, strong sales of 8.0 might have given Redhat the impression that consumers look favourably on 'integer' releases, when really I think 8's popularity was almost entirely due to the well-publicised 'out of the box' antialiased fonts and UI work. If it was called 7.4 it would still have been very popular for these reasons.
It would be nice to see Redhat give a clear rationale behind it's numbering scheme and clear up the confusion that obviously reigns in this area.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Redhat seem to have forgotten that many people won't use a *.0 release...now I've got to wait till October to upgrade my 7.3 box :(
/. , but you guys kind of terminally pissed him off):
Also, many commerical apps - for instance Franz's Allegro CL, which I use all day - won't support 9.0 for a while (they've just got around to supporting 8.0 this month).
Doing this to be at the same number as Slack??? Why not just switch to a sideways 8 and be done with that lame sort of one-upmanship already?(yeah, you're right - Volkerding would release "Slackware Infinity plus 2" - so then you'd release "Redhat Infinity plus Infinity").
Finally, a note to the RH people reading (bero-RH used to respond to all of my posts here on
WTF is up with Metacity?
You put a window manager on your distro that doesn't even have a webpage? Many of us loyal RH users had gotten quite used to Sawfish. So used to it, in fact, that I had used GIMP to create many of my own themes.
So I was unpleasantly surprised, upon installing 8.0, to find that you guys had once again skipped a version number. What were you thinking? Didn't you you guys learn anything from the gcc-2.96 fiasco? (read the very bottom of the page). With 8.0 you've done it again - SF's sourceforge site has the most recent version at 1.2, yet somehow something named sawfish-2.0 made it into your distro. I frankly wouldn't care if your "2.0" worked; but whatever genius in NC decided to "upgrade" it forgot to also upgrade the sawfish-themer. The problem is that you also changed your entire font structure, so that SF2 barfed at my TTF bankgothic fonts. And then I had no themer to change it. Editing theme.jl by hand is a pain.
Now don't get me wrong. Metacity is a great WM. The fact that it uses XML is quite cool. And Havoc is a great programmer. But the fact that you switched WM's on us, and switched to essentially a wholly undocumented WM (there are pages now but none at release and really few for the first few months) is unacceptable.
Now I've kind of gone off on a tangent here, but I'm using a simple example to illustrate a very important point: Whomever is making the UI decisions at RH needs to stop it. I submit to you that some software companies do this thing called research - they find out what their users are using, and then make their products acceptable to them. Yeah, I know, I'm one of few people who customizes his own saw themes. So at this point I will also remind you that with 8.0 you took the terminal icon off of the desktop and the menubar and hid it 3 or 4 levels deep in the menu.
And a litany of other things - my point is that each release should have me sighing relaxing sighs of "Oh, this is nice," but instead every April and October I find myself feeling ever more uncomfortable and having to re-learn your entire distro. And don't tell me this is "innovation" - I know progress when I see it, and this isn't it.
On a better note, for the day or two that I did use 8.0, the fonts were beautiful - if you guys can hurry up and create an upgrade that I can live with, I'll love you for it.
I hope they get a stable & mature 9.x release out by the end of the year, like 9.1 or 9.2, before the EOL cycle for 7.x systems.
My 7.3 system is pretty mature. Moving from a well-patched x.3 system to a immature x.0 system seems like a potential can of worms.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
This means that, going by the "never use a .0 RH convention", the latest stable release will still be 7.3.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I am not overly pleased about this. The changes from 7.2 to 8.0 were not overly significant in my opinion, and 9.0 isn't going to be that different from 8.0. How could it be? There has not been enough time between them for major kernel changes or radical security modelling to alter, etc.
Click here or here.
When I read your subject I thought you were going to say Red Hat is the same as Microsoft, which is not true. I agree with you. Red Hat has become sucessesfully thanks to their hard work. No monopolies, ... And they well always have enough competency to face. And they aren't focused on working on their distro, they are focus on bringing Linux to the top!! RPM are used by many distros., etc
Don't hate big companies because are big. Don't buy a product because it comes from a big company such as Microsoft.
n0dez
While that is not necessarily a bad thing, it does make you wonder what they'll do with RHCEs. Are they expected to pay out $$$$ to learn about the new window dressing and a couple of package changes or perhaps there should some kind of 'booster' certification which costs much less and makes their RHCE good for a few more years.
And it's shit like this that undermines companies like Red Hat, Mandrake, and other open-source companies.
Red Hat Network & the Mandrake Club, etc., exist so the people who are willing to *PAY A PREMIUM* receive better or more prioritized service.
There are so many reasons this is wrong. By freeloading off of RHN, you're effectively telling Red Hat "Hey, we're not willing to pay for a product that you've spent time and money on. Since it's GPL, we're gonna get it for free anyway."
Red Hat spends time and money improving Linux, and sharing with the community. Whether or not you use their distro, like their politics, or whatnot, "Red Hat Linux" is pretty much what most people who've HEARD the word Linux think of.
By stealing the link and posting it to Freenet, you're cheating the people who paid a premium for early access.
Look at it this way: Just how much would you giggle if you placed an order and put down a deposit for a new Harley Davidson (Ferrari, Hummer, what the fuck ever), and someone was able to get their bike before you, without paying a deposit, because their buddy works for the dealership - making your wait longer?
Sorry to jump all over your ass, but Open Source companies NEED people willing and able to pay a premium to receive premium service. It improves public perception and a company's willingness to stay in business.
Freenet doesn't keep developers in Mountain Dew.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."