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?

Comments

Odd...

[cyclist1200]

9 instead of 8.1?
Could this be an early April Fool's joke?

Re:Odd...

[Lechter]

With no PR build-up, and no listing of new features on RedHat's website (can anyone else find any, because I certainly can't!) this release certainly looks like a bad joke, and if it's not an April Fools then it makes Red Hat look like a bad joke.

I'm using 8.0 now, and RH's games with registration and update-systems combined with their ridiculous "BlueCurve" rebranding (I'm sorry, but it just takes RH even farther away from any sort of standard, and forces it's users to go to RH for software updates), combine to make Red Hat look un-professional. Why should I buy any of their software, if they're just going to come out with a new major version months later and leave me in the dust?

I mean really, what warrents this? Is there a brand new Kernel major version that I've somehow missed hearing about? Does RH have the inside on a new blazingly fast XFree86? If this is serious it's a ridiculous marketing game, and if it's a joke it's wholly unprofessional!

As soon as I've time it's back to the source and on to Gentoo for me!

Pain and Misery

[bperkins]

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.

Yippie.

[naelurec]

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)

Re:Yippie.

[IamTheRealMike]

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.

I didn't see anything about the difference in numbers determining for how long a particular release was supported. In fact, I'm pretty sure that RH8.0 will be supported for 12 months - like they said it would be.

At this rate, I don't think we will ever convince developers of some great software (Adobe, Macromedia, etc) to port to Linux.

We won't convince them by taking a half-broken desktop that hardly anybody uses and claiming it's stable either.

Desktop Linux (which is what redhat linux is now) is still very much beta software. When it's actually fully competitive with Windows in every respect, then expect it to start slowing down in terms of churn. Everybodies up in arms because a major release number means things change and backwards compatability is sometimes lost. Maybe in future we'll all be using distros with 6 month release cycles still, but that doesn't mean there will be chaos in the realm.

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)

You make it sound like the major version number is based on how many cool features something has. It isn't. It's based on significant loss of compatability/significant changes in the API/ABI levels.

RHL 7.0 started out as Red Hat Linux 7

[peewhitlle]

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.

Features & Verson numbers

[d3xt3r]

If Red Hat has refined it and added enough features and eye candy, it may well warrant a new version number.

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

1. Red Hat changed things enough and added enough new features to warrant 9.0.
2. Marketing figured 8.1 wouldn't sell as many copies a 9.0

I'd really like to see a list of "new features" so I can decide for myself. :)

Re:Features & Verson numbers

[ajs]

There is one and only one reason that Red Hat bumps the major number, and that's binary compatability. If you can't run binaries under it that you could in the previous release, then it can't have the same major-number. Period. Usually the reason for the change in binary compatibility is due to library changes (e.g. new major version of glibc).

Now, there may be political, marketing or contractual reasons that a major number is prefered, but since binary compatibility is not guaranteed between major releases, you'll usually find that the one leads to the other, and thus the original statement holds true (i.e. engineers are free to rev libs in a major release, so they do).

The reason that Red Hat would release a new major version so soon after 8.0 is almost certainly to track the latest desktop updates which have been fast-and-furious since 8.0 was released, especially from GNOME (2.2.x is FAR more reasonable than 2.0, which IMHO, Red Hat released too early).

Re:Features & Verson numbers

[kasperd]

Marketing figured 8.1 wouldn't sell as many copies a 9.0

Why? I'm still running RH7.3. The reason I didn't upgrade to 8.0 is mainly that the .0 releases are by many considered to be problematic. I tried 7.0 when it was released and I hated it. I had decided to upgrade from 7.3 to 8.1 as soon as 8.1 was released. Now I start wondering if I should rather stay on 7.3 and wait for 9.1 to be released. Or is it about time I try another distribution?

Re:Features & Verson numbers

[prockcore]

Now what if RedHat changes it's mind and renames the release to 8.1 at the last minute? Does that mean you would use it?

Now we see the problem of judging an app by it's version number rather than it's reviews.

Reguardless of the version number, either wait until the reviews are in, or try it out on a machine you don't care about. A version number is meaningless.. even the difference between 9.0 and 8.1 is arbitrary.

Re:Features & Verson numbers

[zerocool^]

Why? I'm still running RH7.3. The reason I didn't upgrade to 8.0 is mainly that the .0 releases are by many considered to be problematic. I tried 7.0 when it was released and I hated it. I had decided to upgrade from 7.3 to 8.1 as soon as 8.1 was released. Now I start wondering if I should rather stay on 7.3 and wait for 9.1 to be released. Or is it about time I try another distribution?

Yeah, according to RH's research, 80 of the RH users out there are running 7.x or higher. But i'd suspect not more than 30% or so are running redhat 8, and most of those are desktop's, i'm sure, not servers. Which brings up:

There's a much bigger problem:
What about support for those of us running RH 7.x?? What happens when a vulnerability occurs in the code? How far back do you think they'll release patches? I know they don't continually patch 6.x now, so I'd imagine that they won't continue to patch 7.x after this release. That's going to leave me and my 50 computers at work running RH 7.x high and dry.

Cause, I'm damn sure not upgrading to RH 8. You may think it's buggy, but you don't know the half of it. Try running it on a server sometime - it CAN'T be done in a sane manner. The default install installed apache 2, but then tried to install a version of mod_perl that is incompatable with 2.0, so then it also installed 1.3.19, but then mod_php wouldn't work, no SSL support, etc. Good grief. RH 8 was buggy beyond belief.

So, now, i'm expected to update to something, either 8 or 9 on 50 comptuers at work, and not break anything in the upgrade?

Thanks, redhat. If you weren't what everyone asked for, i'd move back to debian or gentoo. This is exactly why no one wants to release binaries for linux. If you wrote something for NT 3.51, chances are it still works in 2k server. Not saying that IIS is better, but linux needs to work on the not forking so much thing, and leave some sanity in the backwards compatability.

Re:why do subscribers get it ahead

[Zathrus]

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"?

ugh, even linux does it now

[AssFace]

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)

Breaking binary compatibility?

[yorgasor]

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?

Re:why do subscribers get it ahead

[Gortbusters.org]

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.

Re:This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff

[YellowBook]

If 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...

Seems strange

[ikekrull]

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.

Hope 9.1 is out before the end of the year...

[stefanlasiewski]

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.

Hmmmm,

[Trogre]

This means that, going by the "never use a .0 RH convention", the latest stable release will still be 7.3.

Sucks for RHCEs

[totallygeek]

I got certified at 7.2. Going to 9 this quick makes my certification go out, meaning I will need to shell out about $1000 to take the onsite proficiency tests again.

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.

No! No! No! PREMIUM services are necessary.

[DavittJPotter]

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.