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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Released
OrenWolf writes "CNET is running an article on the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, which is Red Hat's shiny new 'enterprise' version of Linux. Major changes include more IBM Mainframe support, support for AMD64 (x86_64) processors (aka Opteron, Athlon64 and AthlonFX), changes to support options, integration of Stronghold Apache, and much more."
which is Red Hat's shiny new 'enterprise' version of Linux
Actually, there are three versions of Red Hat Enterprise, WS, ES, and AS, WS is supposed to be a desktop OS, while AS is the most advanced version, WS price starts at 179$, and AS price at 1499$ for the Intel x86 platform.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
True, it's not free (as in beer), but it is Free (as in speech), and that is what is important. As for support, that depends on which product you're buying - the AS version always comes with support, the ES and WS versions have support as "optional", depending on whether you want to pay more or not. Sounds like a good deal to me...
The Free desktop that Just Works
"Free as in speech" doesn't mean "download an iso".
The source RPMs are available on ftp.redhat.com for you to peruse, modify and compile at will.
Nothing says they have to hand it to you on a silver platter.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The source RPMS are available from their servers (though I can't check right now...server is too busy), so you can build it yourself. They're charging for the packaging (which is the .iso as well since it all has to work together), the support, and for any non-free software, but not the free software, which is the right thing to do.
Go RedHat!
so you LEGALLY & with GPL's blessing rip the CD's from work or your friends or someone uploads them to alt.binaries.whatever...
Yup.
I obtained 2.1WS for home from my copies as work. When work updates to 3, then I'll make copies for use at home. I don't need paid support at home. It is nice to have at the office, though.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I can guarantee you that you won't get support but it will be interesting to see how Red Hat goes about publishing updates since I somehow don't see some of their larger customers downloading and compiling source code and then rdisting the non-RPM, binary updates to their Red Hat systems. I'm guessing Red Hat won't really care since the people who would go to the trouble of figuring out how to make this work probably wouldn't cough up $1,499 or whatever it is anyway. There's always Mandrake, Debian, Slack, Red Hat's own Fedora, etc. for us cheap bastards.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Yeah, this is all perfectly legal. Installing any updates however you get from subscribing to the updates service, violates your RHN contract.
Essentially Redhat is selling the support, and a guarantee to support a RHEL product for 5 years after its release.
AccountKiller
Well, there's Fedora. In a way, that's the real Red Hat Linux product under a new name. It's still a free download. It's not out of beta yet, but it's getting close. I'd be surprised if there weren't security updates provided for that, since they're saying that packages in Fedora are going to work their way into later Red Hat Enterprise Linux products.
Of course if Redhat is simply charging $149 for the service of being able to download their distro and aren't looking to prevent you from installing it on as many systems as you'd like (sans support obviously), then I'll be more than happy to pay the money to get those ISO images
This is the question I had. The sales guy on the phone said this is exactly what they're doing. It's still open source software, so you can install it on as many machines as you want, but you can't buy one support contract and install the updates on 100 machines. They still have to provide the source for the updates of course. So you could DL each source update RPM and compile it yourself.
I'd encourage you to call them though. For 100 machines they may have a better option for you (they also have some kind of satelite service where you can sort of create your own distribution and updates).
AccountKiller
Several influential members in the Fedora team are interested in working on development of Fedora AMD64. Please join fedora-devel-list and join is if you are interested too.
yeah, but the GPL doesn't permit companies to make any profit on GPL'd software
That is not true. You are allowed to sell GPL software at whatever price you want. It only says, that if you make a profit on selling binaries without source, you must also sell sources without making any profit on the sources. For the exact words read section 3 part 3 of the GNU GPL.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
You can download the ISOs from Red Hat Network if you have purchased an earlier version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Actually, Apache is already included in WS. According to this (all the way down), you get Apache, NFS and Samba in WS 3.0. You need ES or AS if you need the following servers:
amanda-server, arptables_jf, bind, caching-nameserver, dhcp, freeradius, inews, inn, krb5-server, netdump-server, openldap-servers, pxe, quagga, radvd, rarpd, redhat-config-bind, redhat-config-netboot, tftp-server, tux, vsftpd, ypserv.
That being said, I'm sure it's very, very easy to grab the dhcp SRPM from ftp, rpm --rebuild and install.
Hello, my name is Robert Lerner, and I pronounce Lernux as "99% cpu"
I remember, does anyone else remember, when Microsoft stopped supporting windows 95 in 2000? That caused a big stir in the slashdot community about all those millions of computers out there still running windows 95 who are going to have no support! Well, I advise you to take a look at the end-of-the-line dates [redhat.com] for RedHat. Redhat 8 was release, what, about a year ago? Mabey 14 months? And it's end of the line is December 31st of this year?
You are confused. RH Advanced Server does not have a short end-of-life like the rapidly updating RH 7/8/9 series - if I remember correctly it's about 5 years from initial release. I also suspect that you can extend that support further should you be willing to pay for it. Just don't expect support beyond the EOL of a product line to be cheap - you (and whomever else around also wants that support) will have to pay to retain that department in RedHat active.
See, another problem that's going to hit redhat is that, until now, they had planned on releasing a free product called redhat and a pay-for-support-in-order-to-get-the-CD's product, also called redhat (enterprise). But, the way I understand it now, it's looking like the enterprise product is going to be called redhat and the free one is going to be called something else (fedora?). Well, that's just great for redhat, but what about me? I'm in the webhosting business. What do I say when customers call and ask about the $119/month dedicated server? Does it come with redhat? And I have to tell them No, becuase it quite simply costs too much. In fact, sir, it's more expensive that windows server 2003, if all you want to do is webhosting.
Excellent. Well done. You are going to pass on your own confusion to your customers.
If your customers want a Redhat QA'd linux distribution, you can give them Fedora. RH is still overseeing the core packaging and quality of the Fedora release, and will probably cut stable releases from the development set as a distro every 6 months.
If your customers want Redhat Advanced Server with support, then let them pay for it. You still have options. Your customer still has options. If your customer is confused over the choices available, it is up to you to explain what is available, what is suitable and needed for their requirements. That is good business sense - know your own market.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Last I checked, every last line of code in RHEL 3.0 was GPLed, and the SRPMs are downloadable from redhat.com.
Don't want to pay RedHat's support prices? Download the SRPMs, compile them, roll your own distro. (CheapBytes or someone like them will inevitably do this for you, for a nominal cost.) Or hell, just borrow the ISO from someone with a RHEL license and make a copy: it's quite legal.
If you really are running a webhosting business, stop bitching and start calling your redhat salesrep. There's these things called "volume discounts" that have been all the vogue since, ah, the industrial revolution.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.