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Red Hat To Drop Boxed Retail Distribution
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat, the leading American distributor of Linux, is abandoning the retail channel, the company is expected to announce Monday, says this story in Linux and Main. Non-Red Hat developers will be given a greater role in deciding what's in upcoming Red Hat distributions, too."
When someone is ready to try an alternative to Windows, its much easier to pick up the CDs rather than wait hours for a public download to finish...and lose the enthusiasm for a change in OS.
Solid!
Perhaps this may be a boon for MandrakeSoft? The novice home user who only wants to casually look at Linux or who lacks broadband might feel more comfortable going to the store to get Linux CDs.
If it keeps them effective, cool. This part concerns me though:
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The company hopes that the changes help to overcome the long lead time needed to produce boxed sets. With a six-month release cycle, and with the rapid pace of Linux development, many packages shipped on CD are obsolete before they ever reach retail shelves.
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Kinda valid, but sounds more like their boxed versions simply aren't selling that well. Not blasting them by the way. I always buy my Linux distros just to support the company, and this is the now only company I get my Linux distro from. I trust they won't go away...
What will will do for businesses putting redhat on the desktop in regard to the RedHat trademark? Are they going to have to pay for it online, or will they drop all the trademark stuff for RedHat Linux?
Maybe this will make RedHat make like Debian in regards to trademarking, etc. Maybe not since they should still be selling the support packages.
Red Hat was probably hemorrhaging cash in the consumer retail arena... so rather than continue to fight a loosing battle, they're regrouping and doing what works for them.
It's a novel conect in the IT economy.... focus on what actually makes your company money, and dump what you loose money on. Red Hat isn't a Microsoft... they don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share. They *need* to focus on what makes money.
Red Hat is provider for Linux OS for the Enterprises. They want to concentrate more on the RH 2.1 Advance Server, and not waste too much time on the retailing the distribution.
Moveover since the developers will be actually the one doing the packaging as well, Red Hat's job will become in including those packages in their ES/AS/WS distributions. Making the developer list open to all, will in-turn help them making their ES/AS/WS services better.
They want to be a service oriented company, rather than a product oriented. And this is the only Open Source Model that will survive.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Most people who use and enjoy Linux and want to keep it going do, in fact, "shell out money" for a box set. I put my money where my mouth is; I buy every x.1 Mandrake release and am a Mandrake club member. I also just purchased the definitive guide, even though I think it's a little overpriced, the shipping is too high, the discount for being a club member isn't very much, and the entire book is available to club members (like myself) as a .pdf.
If you particularly like a certain distro and use it for day-to-day use, I suggest you do the same if you want it to survive. Or if it's something like Gentoo, give them the amount it would cost if they had a boxset once a year or so, which would be about $60.
Chris
Which means that they'll get fewer new users than they otherwise would have done - many people are more likely to buy the products that they see, rather than go hunting around to find a better product on the internet somewhere
Operating systems are different. The vast, vast, vast majority of people use whatever comes with their computer. Those who wish to try something different, are by definition not mainstream. The problems with the boxed sets are many - they are expensive and complex to produce, and are rapidly obsoleted at a rate most people would not be happy about.
Basically, with the increase in broadband penetration it becomes increasingly likely that if you want Linux, you either have, or know somebody that has a fast link, so you can download the ISOs.
I expect you will still be able to buy CDs of the distro, just that you will have to get them from online shops.
Anyway, IMHO this move makes sense. RHL is no longer a "product" as such, certainly not one that makes money. It would seem to make sense to make it more a community thing - after all, in terms of software freedom it's just as good as Debian.
I'd be a bit worried that it might stagnate though - I hope Red Hat still take a lead in developing it. Would BlueCurve have happened in a community driven distro? Probably not. Yet I still like it.
I have to acknowledge them for a good business move.
They have obviouly looked at the retail market and made the same observation as the rest of the software world: Don't attempt to compete with Microsoft in the channel.
Understand that Microsoft eats software companies for lunch by luring them into a den where the buyers for Office Depot, CompUSA, Best Buy, etc.don't know RedHat, Corel, Claris, etc. from the $1 CD's they sell from CD Specialists, Inc.
Microsoft pulls software companies into the retail space just to watch them LOSE money. Red Hat has decided to stop the bleeding.
Here's Another Point:
Nothing in this announcement says that Red Hat will stop providing media. They will continue to provide media just like every other software company you haven't heard about does.
Have you ever seen AIX on the retail store shelf?
This is a very smart move for Red Hat. You'll find the media out there, but someone else will provide ala Mandrake.
Red Hat has a tight lip. They don't elaborate. Yet they keep gaining market share.
Their timing here is impeccable.
People bash Red Hat all the time and Red Hat people just don't answer. They don't get into the frey. But Red Hat developers are on all the mailing lists and they're giving us their time and expertise. That's RH encouraged. I'm an old timer and it's taken me a long time to discover what Red Hat is doing. I may use a different Distribution, but they are good for Linux.
I think that you have missed the point where redhat says that the developers of packages will maitain their own rpms for the distro. As a developer that had to create rpms, i see clearly that this move would influense the way developers produce - distribute their programs. If a developer maintains the rpms, he will probably tell people to use them in their install, this would mean that he would tell people to use RedHat to install the software on !
RedHat is simply recognising, like Microsoft, that is has to attract developers for it's platform, so that people would develope for RedHat platform, not for general Linux.
Every time I buy a boxed set at CompUSA, I see people watching and I know they're wondering about using it. Certainly, they're seeing that people DO buy this "Linux thing" they've been hearing about. At work, people grab the box...or the manuals and comment on how neat it all looks. They claim to be surprised at how much you get in the package, thinking that only MS can do stuff like that. When vendors come in, I purposely leave the materials laying around and I always get a question or two about where our "commitment" is to Linux, usually followed by a resigned sigh as they realize that they'll have to adapt or lose. Red Hat is seriously underestimating the power of that box, and Linux will suffer because of this.
Indeed.
/.'rs, but I'll be looking for that "donate" button on Redhat's download page. If you've the means, I suggest you do likewise.
I also purchase boxed sets of linux, and have for several years. I may or may not use them for very long (latest iso's get downloaded, checked out, and often installed... I can't count how many linux CDs I have laying around), but I believe in supporting the distros.
I use redhat primarily, but I'm also a MandrakeClub member, and I believe in supporting people who provide a valuable service. Now, college students living on Ramen noodles may not have the cash in their paypal account to do this, but as a professional with a respectable income, I feel an obligation to pony up. Bottom line: if you've got the cash, you have no excuse.
That said, I'm sometimes amazed at how many people are leechers and have no problem with it... where's their pride? Their sense of shame? When did it become OK to simply be a drone?
I don't know about most
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Buy it, install it, love it!!!
The entire point of putting a distro of Linux on the shelf is public awareness marketing - It's specifically to reach those who don't have a geek friend to install Linux for them. It's an investment to get those people to get into [RH] Linux, and then down the road those consumers come back when they need servers... Magazines exist solely on this principle - You can't have a readerbase if people don't know you exist. While I acknowledge that it isn't cheap to make a shelf copy available - besides packaging, RH and Mandrake were packaging additional CDs of material and offering a year of telephone support in some cases - the reality to the decision of discontinuing a shelf copy is there is a LOT of market exposure lost. This is RH saying the Linux Desktop doesn't exist.
They don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share.
Red Hat had the capital...but instead they just chose to spend $700 million of it on a compiler company and some questionable dot coms.
Setting aside a fraction of that $700 million to continue to provide an easy way for consumers to get their distribution from retail channels would have been the strategically correct thing to do. But then again, that would be acting like a desktop software company (as opposed to the server software company Red Hat has traditionally been).
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
If RedHat isn't going to distribute their wares through a retail channel, then someone else will. It may not be from Red Hat, but anyone can distribute a copy of Red Hat Linux.
It will happen.
I teach an Intro to Linux course at a community college (using RedHat, mostly because of it's popularity). Even though one of the first things I mention is that Linux is free and show the students how to get it, most of then go out and buy a boxed set (my guess is because it's out of habbit or they want the documentation in the dead tree form). If RedHat stops selling boxed sets, then it's only going to hurt themselves. And I may have to change the distribution I use in the class.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
This is the ideal point for Mandrake to seriously attack the consumer market. With Red Hat out of the picture, I think Mandrake can easily fill the gap. If Mandrake doesn't rebound in the near future, they are gone IMO...
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
Nearly every,though no all, version of RH I've run has been a boxed set. I buy it retail because I want to contribute to the idea that Linux is a great OS. Taking it off the shelves means that M$ has, in maybe a small way, won a battle. No, it may not be selling the best, but I doubt Windows XP sells off the shelf very well either, since most get it with their new PC. Okay, so it may help a bottom line on an expense sheet somewhere, but there are intangeables to consider. Not retailing your OS says to the world "we're not a serious OS contender." Frankly, in my mind, this sets at least RH back a few years in the publics perception. >
Since the article is not accurate, and is filled with tonnes of invalid misinformation, the conclusions you and others are making from the misinformation are also quite invalid. This will become much more aparent on Monday and the following days/weeks. The only people who know what the new developmental changes are, are people who work _at_ Red Hat. Anything being rumored in public currently is rampant inconclusive speculation, and nothing more.
Why would RedHat have to lay off people? You think they print the box sets and press the CDs themselves? They just hand that off to other companies that specialize in creating retail products. I'd be surprised if it had any affect on RedHat employees.
Could we please try to expunge this inane "Linux desktop is dead" meme? First off, it isn't -- or else my desktop is an illusion -- and secondly, you could only believe this if you hadn't been watching the evolution of Linux over the past ten years. I've been using it since the SLS days, and I can unequivocally state that the Linux desktop has been improving (at an increasing rate) ever since. Repeating alarmist but catchy phrases about the demise of the Linux desktop reveals the speaker's ignorance to those who use said desktops, without adding anything of consequence to the discussion.
About the only thing "dead" regarding the Linux desktop is twm...and it's only sleeping!
-Carter
(And yes, some of us really did like twm....)