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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?
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.
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"?
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).
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?
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Marketing figured 8.1 wouldn't sell as many copies a 9.0
.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?
Why? I'm still running RH7.3. The reason I didn't upgrade to 8.0 is mainly that the
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
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!
credo quia absurdum
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.
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Free your mind.
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...
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
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.
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.