Interview with Jeremy Hogan of Red Hat

jeremy writes "In a followup to his original interview, Jeremy Hogan discusses some of the reasons Red Hat had for EOL'ing RHL, future licensing options for RHEL (including free devel copies), the most common Fedora misconception, his take on UserLinux and more."

Comments

Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[elvesRgay]

If you want to use RedHat "Enterprise Server", RedHat charges at least 349 dollars a year for a mandatory subscription.

But the software is GPL, so I would like to hear a RedHat person comment on this:

http://whiteboxlinux.org/

This is Redhat ES recompiled with all the redhat copy righted logos and stuff removed. It's almost done (release candidate #2). And it's free.

I haven't found any interviews where Redhat comments on the possibility/inevibility of people doing this. I remember a reference made some time ago (that I can't seem to find now) by some RedHat officer about the UnitedLinux people being able to just download the sources to RedHat Linux and they would have their widely adopted Linux standard. So I suspect they must have anticipated something like this.

I know I have.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[lcde]

hehe, its like pirating GPL.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[CrazyLion]

I think RedHat would only benefit from White Box. RH is going after corporate IT departments that have budget and want hand-holding. These guys would pay rather than use something less than perfectly "official".
People who will use White Box are those who wouldn't have bought RHEL in the first place. If thse people choose to use White Box, RH would benefit since more users would learn to use their software (making it more of a standard). RH will also benefit from debugging efforts and improvements of White Box - GPL works both ways.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[hubertt]

You have to understand that it's not software that you pay for in RedHat Enterprise Server.

Re-compiling it or re-packaging does not bring the added value you get for that 349 USD or so. This added value is the technical support - and that's a basic idea behind earning money on GPL-ed software. So it's not only RedHat logo what you are missing from whiteboxlinux.org.

But it's perfectly fair, in my opinion. You have money - you buy support and knowledge. But if you have the knowledge - you can use the software and not pay for it - you invest your time and skills. That's the power of open software - you're not getting money for the code but for the knowledge.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[yiantsbro]

Actually if everyone plays nice this is the situation many have wanted. For instance, if you take Windows XP sure a more corporate type of area would want to pay for the OS/support. However, why couldn't it be free for home/educational/non-profit type use?

With this setup you have the best of both worlds. "Profit" areas that can pay, want to pay (for a certain level of comfort and support) will pay. This will allow further development/enhancement to the OS.

Other groups that don't need that comfort level (or can't pay) can use basically the same (non-branded) OS.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[DA-MAN]

> Re-compiling it or re-packaging does not bring the added value you get for that 349 USD or so.

Actually the $349 gets you the following:

# Easy ISOs: OS, Source, and Documentation ISO Images
# Red Hat Network Update Module Service 1-year
# Quarterly OS Updates
# Available via download only

As quoted from here!

For that you can get Whitebox Linux for free.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[hawkbug]

Ok, I believe the key word with RHES is "mandatory" subscription license. I don't think you can just download it from their website and install it without that, which is dissappointing for people who never intend to pay for support that they don't need.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[provoix]

Let them charge whatever they want. It's the branding and support you're paying for, not necessarily the software.

My clients would never allow me to house their mission critical websites on Gentoo just because it sounds silly. But RedHat, yeah...they read about them in an article, and know they have support...they'll pay for that...

Beyond the expense, the law of supply and demand will guard against inflating costs (well, unless you purchasing from MS) ;D

I for one am glad that RH has the forsight to acknowledge the need for branding. FINALLY, I can bring Linux to my clients!

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[burns210]

Redhat open sources all their tools for this reason... unlike, say, Suse, who keeps their claim to fame app to themselves... Read into it what you want, but Redhat is an opensource company trying to make a profit, and build a community around their product...

I say, good for them, I will be running Fedora for quite a long time.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[hubertt]

Quoted from the very same page:
* Available with Standard Edition support.

And what is "SE support"? Quoted from http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/features/ :

"Enterprise-class support

Red Hat Enterprise Linux products include a full year of support with varying service levels depending on your chosen subscription option."

So what you're paying is one year of full tech support.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole idea is that your paying for the engineering and QA that go into keeping a product supported for 5 years.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[bobbozzo]

In addition to WhiteBox, there is another RHEL knockoff in the works: cAos -- Community Linux

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to learn to read. The $349 includes no tech support. That's no web support. That's no phone support. If you want to pay more for Standard Edition, then, yes, you get some limited support.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[elvesRgay]

349 dollars does NOT get you support. You have to pay for the subscription to RH Enterprise Server to use the binaries and to get updates. This is within RH's rights. What you don't have an option to do is to use their binaries without a subscription.

What you do have an option of doing is to download the source code like the white box linux guy is doing. I think you may need a subscription to access the source RPM's for the distribution. I know you need a subscription to access the source RPM's for the updates.

So knowledge in this case doesn't get you anything. Again, this is within RH's rights. What I find very unlikable about it is that they waited untill they where widely adopted and then said effectively, now we have you, now you must pay or migrate, you have five or six months to do this.

I don't need their support beyond their patches. I was willing to pay for those patches, but not 349 dollars per server per year. 50 dollars per server per year was OK, but not 349. That makes it more expensive than windows, (So says the pointy hairs). So I have migrated off RedHat to debian. There are a few applications that still need RedHat or Solaris, and for those White box Linux may be the way to go.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[hubertt]

Damn, you're right! I need to learn :-)
Here is the clear comparison of various RedHat options. It seems you're getting binaries only for 349 with no dedicated tech support.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[flacco]

Re-compiling it or re-packaging does not bring the added value you get for that 349 USD or so. This added value is the technical support - and that's a basic idea behind earning money on GPL-ed software.

ok, so where's the "technical support"?

we have a number of the $60 up2date subscriptions and have decided to take two basic RHEL subscriptions for the time being. i've posted queries a couple of times on the redhat-sponsored lists asking for help when the red hat how-to's failed me (stuff like getting ldap auth over ssl to work) and gotten zero help.

i mistakenly thought that perhaps RHEL came with some conveniences to make enterprise stuff easier to do, or at least some feedback from the lists.

that's just my take on it. i know i'm not a linux *god*, but if i were i wouldn't need tech support or convenience tools to begin with. given that userlinux and debian-enterprise profess the goal of providing turn-key simplicity for mid-level admins, i'm watching them very closely.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[DA-MAN]

The price of Basic Edition is $349

> * Available with Standard Edition support.

Standard Edition costs a lot more, $799. That's the one that comes with support.

I think $349 is a bit excessive, especially considering the large mirroring that goes on for RedHat from many Edu/Gov sites.

RedHat could discontinue access to ftp.redhat.com for all but the larger mirrors and have everyone (paying or not) be able to get their updates from more than one distribution point.

I imagine Whitebox or Caosity will probably be used more and more. As this happens, RedHat will become largely irrelevant. May not want to run an Oracle box on Whitebox, but for large web servers, cluster farms, and other such systems it'd probably be a great and competitive alternative that will grow.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Robert The Coward]

Because if you have a server that is running well and doing what you want it to do you don't want to break it. So RedHat backport secuirty fixes to eailier version instead of fource you to use CVS or New Releases that could break things in your server. That Process of backporting is what they are paying for. If you start with Apache 2.05 you keep Apache 2.05 with patches for secuity. That are then tested to confirm that nothing apears to break and if things break redhat fixes them and release a new package update all based on 2.05 not 2.xx instead.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck keeping up with the patches, recompiling and installing the new software.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Frymaster]

of course you have option of using the free fedora but.. from the article:

LQ) Tell us a little about the just released Fedora project (How do you see it impacting RH, how does it compare to Cooker or even Debian, what went into it's release, etc).

// edited by request JH) Fedora is what Red Hat Linux was.

whoa! something was said and then replaced with "fedora is what red hat linux was". call me a conspiracy theorist (everyone else does) but it looks to me like jh made some comments about fedora that didn't fit into the marketing plan and had to retract.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[SlashNut]

The problem for Red Hat is they have now subjected their enterprise product to duplication efforts, thus endangering their shiny new business model.

In the past, people said:
"If I don't need/want to pay for a phone/email support contract, and have the expertise, I'll buy or download RHL, and support it myself. The RHEL 2.x product is for enterprise users. I don't need that."

Now people say:
"I need something stable like RHL (mostly) was. Fedora doesn't fill this niche. I feel abandoned by Red Hat. No way am I going to agree to a draconian license and be FORCED into buying a support contract. I guess I will just have to copy RHEL."

Oops, bad move dude.

-- Slashdot's mod system really stinks these days. Mod this up!

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine Whitebox or Caosity will probably be used more and more. As this happens, RedHat will become largely irrelevant.
then we win! we will have no money thrown into development. YAY IDIOTS!

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[hawkbug]

I'm all for stability, and I do appreciate Red Hat's backporting and all that, sometimes. Other times it makes using other software packages that require specific versions of software a real bitch. Cold Fusion MX is a great example of that. It's *finally* able to support Red Hat 9's latest version of Apache.

Back to my point though.... I do contribute to Red Hat in various ways. One such way is buying boxed versions of almost every release they have shipped for the last 5 or 6 years. I didn't have to do that, but I did. My company also didn't have to do that, but did. Red Hat programmers didn't write a majority of the code that is in their distribution. Open Source programmers did. While I appreciate the fact that Red Hat puts together the code nicely in neat little package, I don't think it completely justifies the price they charge, and the fact that it's an absolute requirement in their eyes.

Granted, I will probably purchase a license or two for my company because the support would be nice in a business setting. However, small businesses will not appreciate this since using Red Hat has been a great solution to help business avoid high server-software costs from Redmond. I don't think any business, large or small, will want to use Fedora in production.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> Redhat open sources all their tools for this reason... unlike, say, Suse, who keeps their claim to fame app to themselves...

Which app, exactly, would this be? Can't be yast, the source is provided and the right to change it - you can't sell the changed version, true, but you can do anything else with it you want.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[DA-MAN]

> then we win! we will have no money thrown into development. YAY IDIOTS!

Linux was doing just fine before RedHat came out. RedHat is not the only one developing for Linux. IBM is still pumping mad cash, so are many other companies. SuSE/Novell, Cisco, IBM, AMD, Intel, OSDL, etc are all developing linux into a bigger and badder platform every day. You are very ignorant of Linux if you believe that RedHat == Linux.

A company that turns it's back on the majority of their userbase deserves to die a quick and painful death. RedHat has done quite a bit for the community, but I mean they turned their back on even the certified RedHat Admin's. Even Microsoft doesn't have the balls to drop the relevence of a certification until after the new one has gained major ground. MCSE for NT4 was around still after 2000 was available. Once you piss off the Administrators of your software, you're going to be in a world of hurt.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Robert The Coward]

I never said the price was right or wrong I said that is what they are charging for and why a company would pay the money. I use Fedora on my home server but if I had a company I was setting up for I would use RHE or Debian as they have support for many years and wont cost the company alot of money to have be spend 3 Hours every few months reinstalling the lasted OS to keep everything working fine. 300 Dollors a years would be cheaper then have me come in twice a year and do os updates on the server. My hours rate isn't cheap.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> I say, good for them, I will be running Fedora for quite a long time

What's missing is the donate button, if you will. Up until now, we could express our gratitude for the open-source nature of Redhat by purchasing copies, and help maintain Redhat.

That option is gone. Purchasing a piece of subscription software is difficult, where I work, and $349+Support is over the signature limit. I don't know if Redhat's net income will increase or decrease, but that thankful, small donation they were receiving from so many is gone, and not of our choice.

Re:Redhat ES3 - White Box Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a little caveat here. You pay $349 *per site* when it's obvious you don't get any value added when you go from buying one license to buying two.

With the very first $349 you pay you already can have
# Easy ISOs: OS, Source, and Documentation ISO Images
Can't you use your CD (or a copy of it) on whaterver boxes you want to?
# Red Hat Network Update Module Service 1-year
Can't you download the binaries and then redistribute them to your whole organization?
# Quarterly OS Updates
More of the same.
# Available via download only
So I'll have to burn my own CDs anyway?

Good show....

[IamTheRealMike]

Clear, reasonably informative, posted to community websites and more importantly it sounds like it was written by a real person who just wants to do the right thing.

That's a very rare thing in corporates. I really hope that as Red Hat expands, they keep it up. So far they have, and even with the new splits between their community work and enterprise stuff, I feel pretty confident they won't slip.

I wish all companies were like this. It's too easy for them to slip behind the mask of anonymity.

Re:Good show....

[Joe Tie.]

more importantly it sounds like it was written by a real person who just wants to do the right thing.

It's sad how rare something like that is. I've been growing increasingly tired of statements that either read like they were churned out of a lawyer machine, or which speak in an agonisingly condecending manner. I find it hard to trust any company which will write for pages and pages, throwing around buzzwords, and in the end managing to not say one single concrete statement about their product.

Re:Good show....

[Saeger]

I wish all companies were like this. It's too easy for them to slip behind the mask of anonymity.

I know the meme has been retired, but the cluetrain manifesto is still relevant. People don't want to deal with bland, PR-washed, faceless megacorps that pander to the lowest common denominator, they want humanity.

The saddest thing to see is small businesses who act like these megacorps early on because it's deemed "professional" soulless behavior.

--

Fedora is redhat

[DeadSea]

They just changed the name and stopped offering telephone support. Given this, I downloaded the ISOs, burned them, and upgraded my Redhat 9 box to Fedora.

I have to say it looks great. It took a bit of prodding to get it running. I had a bunch of "3rdParty" software (3rd party to redhat that is) that I had to reinstall (Java, jhead, openmoz, openfb) etc.

I also had to tweak my XFree86 config file to add some higher resolutions (I don't know why 800x600 was the biggest by default).

Then I had to switch back from sawfish to metacity window manager. Sawfish just doesn't seem to work with the gnome desktop switcher panel. Metacity is much better now, it allows me to define the keyboard shortcuts that kept me on sawfish for redhat 9.

The best part about Fedora is no more filling out a survey every time I want to download patches using up2date. Now it just lets me on. No subscription or anything. It is now officially a better product to me just because of that.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

the 800x600 bug didn't happen with me (on Fedora test 2, and Fedora 1) so it must have been a bug in the distro to do with your hardware, not in general. :)

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

They just changed the name and stopped offering telephone support. Given this, I downloaded the ISOs, burned them, and upgraded my Redhat 9 box to Fedora.

I'm still trying to figure out where RedHat is trying to go with this. By charging for the enterprise versions RedHat has just done away with a lot of what made RedHat popular: It didn't cost anything and one didn't have to worry about managing licensing. Yes Fedora carries this tradition forward. And I expect that those people who advocated RedHat in the beginning will continue to do so with Fedora. So where is the benefit RedHat? Without the no/low cost I don't think RedHat can become very successful with it's enterprise line.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Doofus, You contradict yourself three times in your post, but I'll try to answer your question anyway. Fedora is the same 'ol free unsupported RedHat you've had for years. Enterprise is a product, for people with businesses who want support. People who want support can pay for it, and RedHat the company makes a profit, everyone is happy. People who don't want support can continue to have a free RedHat product to do whatever they want with, just like it has been for years. The benefit is everyone has just what they want. The enterprise line is and will continue to be successful because people are buying it to run other bought software (FW1, Oracle, Bea, etc.) so the money isn't the issue. Despite your comment, there is a no/low cost option, its called Fedora. Put the bong down for a few minutes and read it again.......

Re:Fedora is redhat

[guacamole]

This sounds like words of someone who hasn't really worked in an IT enterprise setting. Enterprises want real support and that means not only telephone support. They want updated installers that work with newer hardware. They want a saner product release and upgrade cycle. They also require support for longer than one or even two years. Finally, the ISVs also want pretty much the same things. It's pretty hard for them to test and support their enterprise software products on six or seven different versions of RedHat Linux simultaneously with a new (possibly incompatible) version coming out every five months.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Try telling Michael that. Too bad he can't keep his snide remarks off the front page.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[scheme]

I have to say it looks great. It took a bit of prodding to get it running. I had a bunch of "3rdParty" software (3rd party to redhat that is) that I had to reinstall (Java, jhead, openmoz, openfb) etc.

At least for the java stuff, I would suggest adding jpackage to your yum config and let yum download and setup tomcat and other java stuff for you. It turns installing java related stuff into a fairly simple task.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[EvlG]

It strikes me as funny that corporate IT won't stand for that type of release cycle, but that is the defacto standard for PC games. A new video card generation comes out every 6 months or so, and inbetween that are driver releases that break the apps in new and different ways.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

Fedora is test-ware. If it was RH, they would continue to sell RH. The whole deal with Fedora is to trick developers into a distro that CANNOT compete with their more expensive offering. Very bad intention on RH part, extremely shallow and really disapointing. This kind of "triks" is what puts the community off.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[DeadSea]

I have a Nvidia Geforce 4 which has sort of spotty Linux support. Under redhat 9, I tried the open source nv drivers but I couldn't get them to work. I downloaded the nvidia binary driver from nvidia. It compiled into my kernal just fine and I was happy.

With Fedora, I couldn't get the nvidia driver hooks to compile into my kernal so I tried nv again. It works much better with the exception of the limited resolutions. Luckily, the higher resolutions seem to work just fine once I put them into the config file.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it suffers for not being available retail box at a $30-$80 price, depending on version. They used to include some nifty commercial apps not available in the downloads. I suppose it is no matter, I think SuSE 9 is better for that market anyway.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Coryoth]

I think it is easier to see this in comparison to debian. Redhat used to be a bleeding edge distro, but as they got more business uptake, they had to slow back a bit. This left them in a quandry. They couldn't test the bleeding edge stuff and still have a solid stable server for business. Basically, they had everything as Debian testing, bto keep roughly in line with Enterprise Linux which was essentially equivalent to debian stable. Fedora represents a chance for Redhat to make a proper unstable distribution again - in the debian sense of unstable: rapid updates for new packages, but still fairly solid in most respects.

Debian had a fine setup from the start (though these days even unstable is running a little behind, hence the beginnings of UserLinux), but Redhat didn't have that differentiation. This split is effectively formalising that differentiation between stable and unstable products. The difference to debian is that Redhat stable comes with big support contract as well.

Jedidiah

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

no one said redhat was taking your desktop away, that you would probably wipe and reinstall in less then 3 months anyway (what geek doesn't?)

but i'm confused as to why you are so oblivious to the countless among us that have redhat 9,8 & 7.3 running as server.

hell, it's been less then 5 months since i brought up 6 redhat-9 servers.

do you have any fucking earthly clue how much work, in total some of us have cut out for us?

Re:Fedora is redhat

[williamhooper]

My God man, did you even bother to look at the Fedora mailing list archives?

The Nvidia questions get asked and answered there at least twice a week.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[the unbeliever]

Yes, because people who install computer games don't make money off of them running 24/7 in production environments.

And anyone who installs driver updates the day they are released is smoking something. :P

Re:Fedora is redhat

[DeadSea]

Documentation is for wusses. Much better to just do it.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[vondo]

The question is, "Is Fedora going to continue to be RedHat?"

Fedora Core 1 is what was going to be RH10. 90+% of the work was probably already done. Is Fedora Core 2 going to be stable? Is it going to have updates to the important packages? Or is it going to be a dumping ground, a continual "technology preview" that no one can use to get any real work done? How will the effectively nine month lifetime shake out?

All of these are big questions with Fedora and are the reason, where I work, we went to one license of RH Enterprise 3.0 and will either go with Redhat's academic program or a National Laboratory-built version of RH 3.0 which won't cost anything.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[williamhooper]

Then come and bitch on Slashdot because you can't figure it out...

Re:Fedora is redhat

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Well this isn't flamebait. Check my journal.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[deaddeng]

including the fact that their up2date servers are slow as shit.

I always wondered what their enterprise customers thought when they tried to download from ftp.redhat.com and pulled 30kbps over their T3.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you get for not using a real server Operating System.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[jensend]

The trouble is that nvidia hasn't updated their rpm packages' install scripts in ages and instead uses a loki-setup inspired installer which tries to get rid of any files which conflict with it. This results in it breaking a couple of installed rpms and still not managing to keep up with new files distros provide which still override the nvidia drivers. However, all is not lost: people are allowed to repackage the nvidia drivers and distribute the packages, so you can get rpms from either ATrpms or (better) http://www2.educ.umu.se/~peter/nvidia/.

Re:Fedora is redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is, "Is Fedora going to continue to be RedHat?"

No, it won't. You see, it is named Fedora, not Red Hat for a reason... it is NOT Red Hat.

"Or is it going to be a dumping ground, a continual "technology preview" that no one can use to get any real work done?"

Exactly this is what Red Hat themselves say about Fedora.

Rigth now, the one and only distro that fullfill enterprise "real work" environment (except for the "Big Corporation Certifies its Big Product X.Y on it") is Debian Stable.

If I were you, I'd go for it. The sooner, the better.

this is what scares me...

[potpie]

" LQ) With the recent compromises of both Debian, Gentoo and Savannah is there any concern inside Red Hat that you may also be targeted?
JH) We are above all that. We rule, we are invincible.
Ahem. Sorry."

as long as it remains only a joking affair I suppose it's ok for RedHat to say that :-/... I sometimes do fear that they're growing more toward the Microsoft side of computing- but that's why Open Source is so great. If they do become Billy's little brother, we all have the option of going for another distribution :-)

mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet vBulletin won't last 10 minutes....

Followup Interview with Jeremy Hogan of Red Hat ( post #1)

With all of the recent Fedora and RHEL news, I thought another interview with Jeremy Hogan was in order. He was kind enough to agree to get badgered again. Thanks Jeremy.

--jeremy

###

LQ) Now that the dust from the RHL EOL/Fedora announcement has settled a bit, what are your thoughts on how it played out?

JH) As well as it could have in many respects. We had an awful lot of users putting Red Hat Linux (across many versions) all over the place. But it was all still Red Hat Linux by name to them, so to see that name go, is to see the whole thing go. And on came the "Red Hat throws out baby, keeps bathwater" headlines.

LQ) Did it go as planned?

JH) There was a lot we couldn't plan for, but mostly.

LQ) Do you feel that in the long run the lack of a freely downloadable RHL will hurt the "Red Hat brand"?

JH) No, I think Fedora will develop it's own distinct brand attributes, and people will gravitate, or opt-in to the solution that suits them.

Again, with RHL you had both worlds under one name, so now it's easy to tell in a lot of respects what you should use if you want a freely downloadable (and I'd add installable, ISO'd etc) since Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available for download as well.

We still have gaps to fill in the small business/home office end, but developers can have Fedora, or get RHEL for free in an upcoming program. The new education program has some great pricing, we have a great pricing incentive on ES/WS right now for those c/o price, so you see the initial complaints being addressed. In the end, I think it will
strengthen the brand.

LQ) How has the announcement affected Red Hat internally?

JH) Our culture mirrors the community reaction. It ran the gamut, as you'd expect. I think folks internally thought very long and hard about how this was going to work out. This is part of a bigger plan to really promote our strengths and the strengths of open source technology while identifying and addressing the gaps.

LQ) What is the consensus from the average Red Hat employee?

JH) Well, we've known about it internally for some time, so it's down to execution for us.

LQ) Was the backlash from the Linux community a bit stronger than was anticipated?

JH) Yes and no, I think people got too alarmed by Matthew Szulik's interview. I think it was mis-interpreted starting with the article's headline and on it went.

I'm surprised that some of the people who missed the "free as in free *and* free" RHL ISOs on ftp, did not opt for Fedora.

And I think I'm always surprised at the skepticism toward Red Hat. To me Linux advocates bashing Linux advocates does Microsoft's work for them. It plays into the FUD that we are an angry mob.

LQ) What misconception(s) do you see most often?

JH) That's it's only about money for us. It's really an overt effort on our part to keep things in balance, you donate a million dollars to defend the GPL on one hand, you develop your markets on the other.

LQ) Reading between the lines a bit, a recent comment from Mr. Szulik seemed to indicate that he felt consumer desktop Linux was sufficiently immature that Red Hat doesn't want to offer it, but when it does mature enough Red Hat will get into that market. Any comments?

JH) The consumer desktop is a pretty big market, and we already have a chunk of it, but it's fickle, it's full of folks happy enough, or used to what they have. It's full of people using technology because they have to, or using an OS because it came installed. A number of things have to be right to really get into that, technological superiority, as we've seen is not enough or else OSX would have the desktop. (I've decided to make it a tradition of plugging OSX in these interviews.)

Windows isn't even as seamless as some folks make it out to be as far as hardware and tech support, i

Re:mirror

[heinousjay]

LQ) Pitcher or catcher?

I like them both!

Cute.

SHUT IT MICHAEL

[Anonymous Coward]

from the switch-to-debian dept.

Ok michael, you've added "witty" tidbits like this numerous times, and it's got to stop.

We get it. You like debian, do you have to keep shouting it into our ear? It's not funny, and just annoying to have to see.

If I could I'd mod you -1 troll, but since you've posted this as a story I can't. Please come down from you almighty perch next time you want to be an ass.

Thanks.

Re:SHUT IT MICHAEL

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Michael has been on a high horse ever since he highjacked the Censorware project.

The damned fool has an ego that needs to be stopped.

I guess I am lucky...

[Chicane-UK]

That I work for an educational establishment.

When I read about the December EOL for RH7.x (currently in use on our two large DNS & DHCP boxes) I was a bit miffed - some slightly more advanced notification would have been nice through the usual Red Hat channels.

But the information on educational discounts for RHEL Server (I forget which edition) has helped ease that pain a little. Its actually cheaper than the usual yearly subscription to the RHN, and of course it has a longer lifespan. And conveniently, the description issued for the ideal kind of role for the server edition they were releasing under an academic discount was almost exactly all those systems were used for.

I'll be filling out the purchase order, and resuming the usual business with Red Hat. Slackware nearly got in (especially now that it has swaret), but this has turned the decision back around :)

Re:I guess I am lucky...

[Russ Steffen]

some slightly more advanced notification would have been nice through the usual Red Hat channels.

The EOL dates for 7.x were announced almost a year ago. People just noticed them again when the Fedora stuff was announced.

What more were you expecting? A singing telegram? Carrier pigeon?

Re:I guess I am lucky...

[FattMattP]

When I read about the December EOL for RH7.x (currently in use on our two large DNS & DHCP boxes) I was a bit miffed - some slightly more advanced notification would have been nice through the usual Red Hat channels.

How much advanced notification do you want? They announced it on the usual Red Hat channels a year ago. It was covered on news sites including Linux Weekly News and Slashdot. Just because you've been dragging your feet on planning your migration or were not paying attention doesn't mean that Red Hat is at fault.

Re:I guess I am lucky...

[overbom]

yup, it's good news indeed. red hat advanced server, i mean red hat academic server, is $50 per year.

Read hat workstation is $25. and if you can't turn a workstation into a dhcp or dns server, well...

i dunno. i don't have the heart to say anything really nasty. :-)

Fedora in production

[tellurian]

"Fedora is for developers, contributors, beta testers, hobbyists, and enthusiasts."

Not if you ask any of us who use it in production :-)

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't make it my payroll server but for other simple services like web hosting, mail serving, and basic office functions, it's more than worthy as a production OS.

Re:Fedora in production

[iggymanz]

it's too early to tell, what with first non-teest release, if Fedora will be stable, will really track the RedHat commercial products, or be anything other than a testbed for RedHat for things that may or may not work.

Re:Fedora in production

[Dave114]

Do you really feel like upgrading the OS of your web server every six months or so? (hopefully Fedora legacy will be successful and take some of the bite out of this though)

Best Quote

[SeanAhern]

The best quote from the interview, bar none, is

LQ) With the recent compromises of both Debian, Gentoo and Savannah is there any concern inside Red Hat that you may also be targeted?

JH) We are above all that. We rule, we are invincible.

Ahem. Sorry.

Security is a state of mind, we assume at all times we are a target.

Re:Best Quote

[spurious cowherd]

I know Hogan. That kind of tongue in cheek wise-ass comment is his signature.

And he dips his french fries in mayonaisse :-)

But do not discount the fact that he passionatly believes in open/free software. Linux & doing the Right Thing

Re:Best Quote

[thue]

I quite liked this one :) :

LQ) What direction do you see RH taking, both short and long term?

JH) Short term: enterprise verticals, security, virtualization, management, government adoption, globalization. Open source is spreading like brish fire in other countries. Emerging economies see it as the great equalizer.

Long term: to take over the world and drive our slave army before us doing our evil bidding. Wait, that was supposed to be internal only.

Re:Best Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why coaches don't like players talking out their asses. This is like laying down the gauntlet with these idiots, joke or not.

Impressive

[cpn2000]

Over the years, I have really become a Redhat fan, not so much in terms of their products, given that I have not really used their Enterprise Suite, but more in terms of the company itself. Here's why ...

• They seem to truly believe in the Open Source model. Many companies have paid lip service, tried dial licensing, and so on, but Redhat has stuck to their guns.
• They portray a very respectable image for Open Source to the rest of the world.
• They have proven beyond a doubt that it is possible to create and run a profitable company with the Open Source model.

I think this company has a great potential, and I hope their culture and values as a company do not change as they grow.

Caldera should be a cautionary tale.

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, look what happened to them.

The comparison nobody makes...

[Anonymous Coward]

RHL was a Rawhide snapshot that went through beta testing.

Fedora is a Rawhide snapshot.

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[williamhooper]

Spoken as someone who hasn't even looked at Fedora.

As part of the Fedora beta process, I would say that the Rawhide snapshot that became Fedora Core 1 probably went through more testing than any other. This was helped by creating a yum repository out of Rawhide so testers could easily see when things were updated.

Now, if you actually bothered to install Fedora, you will find that it is just as good as the "Red Hat 10" everyone was expecting it to be.

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"probably" doesn't cut it. RH does not put their name behind it, they promise nothing, so it IS nothing.

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[williamhooper]

So.... Lindows doesn't put it's name behind Debian so Debian IS nothing.

If you want the Red Hat name, buy RHEL. Even though you are trolling, you should read the reason it doesn't have a Red Hat name. I personally like the fact they changed the name in order for it to be more open.

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken as someone who hasn't run Rawhide during a major component upgrade.

So Fedora Core 1 is good...that doesn't contradict what I'm saying:

Rawhide was an ongoing distribution repository. RHL was the result of a snapshot being taken of Rawhide and then put through a beta cycle.

Fedora is an ongoing distribution repository and the official release is a snapshot made every three months.

One hopes that the repository of Fedora will receive more testing than Rawhide used to get but that doesn't change the nature of their development process.

The quality of Core 1 is nothing more than a testament to where things were when Fedora started and the fact that there hasn't been any major changes since RHL9.

When Fedora has to start dealing with x.0 releases of software that have a tendency to disrupt every aspect of the distribution you'll see why community based distributions use unstable/release/stable cycles.

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[mrscorpio]

It wasn't as good though. I beta tested it once it became usable, and it never got too far beyond that - usable - for me. I was previously using Mandrake 9.1, went to 9.2, it was horrible at first but at least after updates and URPMI repositories, it was rock steady and very usable.

Chris

Re:The comparison nobody makes...

[williamhooper]

Spoken as someone who hasn't run Rawhide during a major component upgrade.

If you are running Rawhide, you are doing it by choice. Fedora updates are not Rawhide.

Rawhide is the same as it always was, in development. Fedora is the distro, just like Red Hat Linux was. Nothing to see here, move along.

I switched to Debian

[jtotheh]

I was a loyal Red Hat guy, with a laptop and a home server running 7.3, up2date/RHN subscriptions, etc - then the word was that 8 was not a good upgrade ("don't try the brown acid")* so I waited and stayed at 7.3, and then the word started coming out about RHEL/RHAS/whatever and that they would cease supporting regular Red Hat.

So I switched. I've been pretty pleased, Debian takes a little more digging to find answers sometimes and there are a few things that seem overly complex - but then you learn the reason for the complexity and it's a good one.

I guess people get into Linux for different reasons, for me it was a way to have my own UNIX-like box for free (as in GNU software freedom number 2, see GNU's Free Software Definition -- later I realized it was cool that that could be shared with others gratis.

Sometimes in the computer field you have situations where people sort of say "can't touch this" about some expensive shit (hardware, software, root access) - I wasted a lot of time trying to get around things like Lotus 1-2-3 copy protection and the cost of a PC back in the day, etc. Wasn't even clued in to be trying to get root on a VAX or whatever. Once I saw what the GNU people were doing I've never found a higher philosophy of computing. They just cut through all the BS and get to what's important.

Red Hat certainly helps Linux, making it credible, employing kernel coders, etc, etc. So I know they're not some totally evil entity. Nonetheless, if someone does good and bad, the good doesn't completely negate the bad. Their position is I believe that their "free software" cannot be freely copied** because of various embedded bits of intellectual property that are supposedly not software (they are of course bits and bytes) such as the logos and trademarks. I think this is a scam to avoid adhering to the GNU freedom #2 above.

It ends up with Red Hat, which is built in large part out of the GNU project, being a "can't touch this" kind of product. Somehow that doesn't sit well with me. Also the argument that there has to be some kind of unity among Linux people so don't criticize Red Hat, that makes you equivalent to Microsoft does not seem valid to me either. It sounds from this interview that they are opening some cracks in the wall, developer licensing, academic pricing, etc. This is good to see. It still doesn't seem that different from other commercial software companies though. I wish they could keep the software free and make money from selling services and consulting etc.

* gratuitous reference to Woodstock vinyl recordings

** yes I know you can get SRPMs. I'm talking about the kind of copying one would do normally, if one wasn't forced to jump through these hoops.

Re:I switched to Debian

[sparrow_hawk]

Umm... dude, the whole purpose of Fedora was to open up the development of their distribution to more people.

Fedora Core 1 = RedHat Linux 10

Re:I switched to Debian

[Libor Vanek]

Just to be clear - you switched from RH to Debian because lack of support???

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

What he means is Microsoft the COMPANY hasn't been hacked since October of 2000. Of course we know that's because 10/2000 was when they moved the last of the public sites to BSD. *POOF* no more hacks!

Re:Why bother?

[Medieval_Thinker]

Heh...

One of two things is true.

1. Microsoft is not aware that they have been hacked, or
2. They are not making compromises public.

Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[Masarand]

The underlying reasons for dumping RHL are sound, but the process has confused and discouraged enterprise customers.

A big company I know would have willingly paid for RHEL, but found RHL was free and had great application support, so they went for it (but struggled to understand Redhat's business model.) Now they have over 100's of machines deployed and Redhat suddenly pulls the plug with no migration path. Despite internal pressure to dump Redhat they are looking at RHEL, but the lawyers are terrified of "subscription" software (so how much is it next year, or in three years?) To make things worse, Redhat have the longest licence agreement I've ever seen for this kind of product. Oh, and the Redhat sales people are less than helpful.

Re:Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[Crispy Critters]

"the lawyers are terrified of "subscription" software (so how much is it next year, or in three years?)"

How much if any subscription software is there in RHEL? The update and support service is by subscription. If you decide not to pay RH any more, you can still use any GPLed software for as long as you like. Red Hat can't hijack GPLed code any more than SCO can. The kernel and the basic system are yours forever.

If you don't need or use the proprietary stuff in RHEL, then you can stop paying Red Hat, keep using the software, and handle updates yourself. People are wetting their pants at the thought that they might need to install a program from a tarball or (heaven forfend!) create their own rpm.

Re:Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[epukinsk]

Redhat suddenly pulls the plug with no migration path.

That's, right, there isn't a migration path--there are two.

Bastards.

Erik

Re:Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[BiggerIsBetter]

The thing I dislike about it is that it blows off the users who only want the patches. I care not about "support" per se, only that security patches are applied in a timely manner and that the system is going to be reasonably stable. I was getting that for 60 USD, and now it costs 349 USD minimum. And what about next year? Or the year after that? RedHat lost a lot of trust by pulling the plug on small users who don't want to run a beta distro on their servers.

Re:Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[T-Ranger]

When is the end of life of Windows XP? I havent a fucking clue. And even if MS has anounced a date, that date is based on when they will release Longhorn.. Its not like that date is going to slip or anything.

RHEL is all up front. You pay for 1 year of support, you get 1 year of support. You want support next year you pay for support for next year.

Per Year Support from RedHat is less then (Inital License Cost + Support Calls / Lifespan) for MS stuff.

Its infinitly easier to move from RH to Debian, Solaris, HPUX, or anything other Unix(ish) system if RedHat suddently boosts there prices (or goes away)... Where else can you run those apps that require a MS OS? Right......

Re:Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No

[justins]

People are wetting their pants at the thought that they might need to install a program from a tarball or (heaven forfend!) create their own rpm.

"Professional administrators are upset about the labor involved in their Linux administration quadrupling." There, fixed that for you.

Circular argument

[pavon]

JH) The EOL was due to the split, if we didn't EOL, we'd have three distros. I think companies sized right to support their focus can find a market. For us to continue RHL support would either mean not delivering on our enterprise line or our commitment to Fedora. Or both.

This didn't really answer the question, because the whole reason they started Fedora was to take RHL's place when they discontinued it. The interviewer should of followed up with the question - "So why did you decide to split in the first place?"

Re:Circular argument

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't my impression -- look at the release plan for Fedora. Frequent releases, every 4 months or so. That certainly wasn't the old RHL.

Re:Circular argument

[williamhooper]

To shut the people up that would complain if they didn't have a distro to download.

Red Hat believes in Open Source, so they are willing to provide some resources to a project focusing on an Open Source distro. There is a big difference between providing some resources and supporting a bunch of freeloaders that want free beer with updates for life.

Re:Circular argument

[Anonymous Coward]

There's very valid engineering reasons for the Fedora project. They can't just wait for 2 years, and then try to figure out what the state of every open source project is so that they can do a new Enterprise release. They need to get real world feedback on this stuff.

Re:Circular argument

[bonkeroo buzzeye]

The interviewer should of followed up

Probably way late for this but what the hell - other than interviews 2-3 months apart and a little give and take at the forum (where I spend too much time) there is no followup. As I understand it, these are emails sent out to the interviewees. Then they spend days agonizing over the precise to words to use, ponder for awhile to find 'spontaneous' funny comments to throw in, and so on. People earlier (much earlier) have stated how he seemed like a *real guy* - not at all saying he isn't but he could be a robot and have time to generate such an impression. I get the idea some people mistake this for a transcript of a live interview when - again, as I understand it - it aresn't.

So I wouldn't be surprised that the level of spin control is high and that the questions can't be as hard-hitting as they might be. jeremy (interviewer, not Jeremy, interviewee) does a great job, nonetheless.

Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[0xA]

I work for a largish Canadian University in the electrical engineering department. We have a fairly large deployed base of Red Hat workstations in labs and various research areas and most of the support staff uses Red Hat on our workstations. Some of the other departments (Computer Science for example) are big users as well.

Given the EOL of Red Hat 9 we've been working on just what we're going to do in the future. We talked with Red Hat about licensing and got back some really strange answers. There is the $2500 base site license that also requires a per FTE (full time employee or equivilent) fee of $x. This sounded pretty good until Red Hat told us that we needed to pay for every FTE in the University or have each department get it's own license. There is no way for the EE and CS departments to license together.

I can kind of understand wehre they are coming from on this but it really is a deal killer for us. Why would we license evey employee of the University for RHEL when only a small fraction actually use it? On the other hand, we've been looking at Fedora and it looks like we'll be able do deplaoy and manage it well. I don't really see why many organizations would go for RHEL given the current situation.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[Masarand]

I *REALLY* pains me to say this, but Redhat are harder to do business with than Microsoft. I'd be tempted to go with Debian and get support from someone like Progeny. They can also help with transitions away from Redhat.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[Night Goat]

Why would we license evey employee of the University for RHEL when only a small fraction actually use it?

Why not just buy licenses for only the employees of the university who use RHEL? Wouldn't Red Hat only know of the employees who you buy licenses for? They only know what you tell them. It only makes sense to buy licenses for the users who'll use the product. That's how every OS I'm aware of operates in regard to licensing.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[weave]

I can't tell from their site what it takes to do this. Do you have to buy the base product for $2,500 and then add the server licenses for $50 each, or can you buy them separate? If the former, then if you only have 4 servers, it's $2,700.

And, with all that, you don't get ANY support and I'm back to counting and keeping track of number of installs. All stuff "free" (as in freedom and beer) software was supposed to get me away from.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[guacamole]

RedHat just announced that RHEL WS is available for $25/per year and AS for $50/per year without requiring you to purchase the base package. You don't get phone support but that's still a pretty good deal if you just want a stable computing platoform, updates, etc.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Fedora might as well be called Red Hat 10.

What applies to RH9 also applies to Fedora. Fedora is really nice. I was somewhat skeptical until I tried it, but now I'm sold. If you know Red Hat, you will have no problems with Fedora. To be honest, I really can't tell the difference between RH9 and Fedora (from a user's or an administrator's perspective).

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[DA-MAN]

Although this is standard RHEL WS, they do not do the five year thing on RHEL for EDU.

If you purchase a license for $25, then you have to then upgrade when RHEL 3.1 or RHEL 4 or whatever comes out. Probably for the same price, but migrating all over again.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[0xA]

Yeah that's the way I'm starting to feel too. I feel like I'm playing the "I need 250 windows server cals and 52 TS cals and..." game I used to go through with MS. The sad part is that now MS icensing is dirt simple for me because of the EDU package we have.

That's kind of strange isn't it.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[0xA]

You're confused, I'm confused, so is the RH sales guy. None of this makes sense any more.

Re:Red Hat / Fedora confusion

[bwalling]

I can't tell from their site what it takes to do this. Do you have to buy the base product for $2,500 and then add the server licenses for $50 each, or can you buy them separate? If the former, then if you only have 4 servers, it's $2,700.

Pay them $200 for your four servers. You get software and updates for a year, but no support.

Nothing wrong with that

[sterno]

There's not reason you can't do that, but my guess is that there's going to be two things that will ultimately be different with Redhat ES:

1) Incorporation of non-free software in the distribution. This isn't possible if they are giving away ISO's. Now they are obligated to provide source for the GPL stuff, but not everything, and this saves them the hassle of trying to create a packaged but cripled distro

2) RedHat support - whiteboxlinux may have just about everything redhat has, but it won't have some guy at redhat that you can call.

My assumption is that redhat went this route because of the first issue. I mean, they've never had to offer support for any of their downloadble software, so the second issue seems moot.

Re:Nothing wrong with that

[Pros_n_Cons]

Your guess is just that, a guess. Redhat said they have, and will always have a completly GPL OS.
notice pine isn't installed? mp3, qmail, libdvd or any other junk that even has a hint of sour taste? these guys have always served us well on this front, untill you have proof please keep your 'guesess' to your self, thank you.

Misread the title

[rf0]

and I though it was an interview with Hulk Hogan of RedHat

Rus

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem. Sorry. I was having anal sex

MOD PARENT DOWN!

Re:FP!

[Anonymous Coward]

MODBOMB PARENT!

Tom is a known MANHAM CANNER.

Here is a list of his posts for your convenience.

sss

[Anonymous Coward]

copied straight from osnews.com

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad that not even Debian and Gentoo can "properly secure" a Linux box.

Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[mmcguigan]

When RedHat states that "Linux is not ready for the desktop" what they should be saying is "RedHat is not ready for the desktop". RedHat is fine as a server, but the fact remains that RedHat can't build a desktop; however, as RedHat places the dagger in the backs of those building great Linux desktops they turn around and give us such insightful reading material as this.

"To me Linux advocates bashing Linux advocates does Microsoft's work for them. It plays into the FUD that we are an angry mob."

From where I sit it looks like the shoe is on the other foot. If RedHat's brass truly believe this, then perhaps they should rethink all of their statements about desktop Linux.

"Not really. Not yet, anyway. I tend to look outside the community for the enemy and we've got bigger, imminent threats right now. So do they, for that matter and everyone else too busy kicking our shins to notice."

No!, RedHat the linux community is not kicking your shins and no one is nipping at your heels either. You suck as a desktop. Just admit that you don't know how to build one instead of kicking the shins of those that have succeeded in building great Linux desktops.

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[sparrow_hawk]

I can't say as I would know anything about that, seeing as I've been running RedHat and now Fedora as a desktop quite happily for four or five years now...

Quoth the FA:

The consumer desktop is a pretty big market, and we already have a chunk of it, but it's fickle, it's full of folks happy enough, or used to what they have. It's full of people using technology because they have to, or using an OS because it came installed. A number of things have to be right to really get into that, technological superiority, as we've seen is not enough or else OSX would have the desktop.

Translation: from a business standpoint, a desktop version of RedHat/Fedora doesn't make sense right now. The market inertia is too great. When something big enough -- the fabled killer app -- comes along, they'll move. It has very little to do with how good desktop Linux is *on its own merits*.

You'll know when we think it's ready.

What was your point again?

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[rhavyn]

So which version of Linux should I install so that I can use an iPod out of the box? Which version should I install so that any random web cam I purchase will work with it? Which will be able to run the latest game released? The answer is, none of them will do that. Linux is ready for some people's desktops (like mine) because I'm willing to make things work when they don't, and I'm willing to be careful about what hardware and software I purchase. Many other people. on the other hand, are not capable of doing that. When they buy the newest game or some random piece of hardware, they expect it to work. Red Hat understands this, so they're targetting places like the corporate desktop which requires a limited, known set of apps and have a consistent set of hardware and an IT staff to support the "end users". When more companies support Linux the way they do Windows (and I'm sure it will happen) then Linux will be "ready for the desktop".

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[mmcguigan]

"What was your point again?"

Thought I made it clear the first time. Oh well. Here you go:

[point]It is ready. RedHat is not.[/point]

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[mmcguigan]

No single system works for everyone and every purpose. If that were how we determined desktop readiness, then no system is ready for the desktop.

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[rhavyn]

That's an extremely weak response. Every single thing listed is something that Windows (and to a lesser extent Mac OS X) can do right now, today. And that is the expectation of a "desktop user". If you can't recreate that expectation, that person will not be happy. Thus, Linux is not ready for the "desktop".

Unless you'd like to point out a linux distro that can do that? Otherwise, I'm going to go along with Red Hat and say that, Linux is ready for some people's desktops now and will be ready for everyone else's desktop some time in the future.

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[mmcguigan]

I don't think it is so weak of a response. Anyone can name some piece of hardware or some function that any given operating system will not support, especially "out of the box". Plus, the items you mentioned are specialty items in the sense that the majority of users do not have them.

"When they buy the newest game or some random piece of hardware, they expect it to work. "

This is likely true, the problem is that it doesn't just work in any system out there. If you buy Apple hardware for an Apple computer it will just work, but any random piece of hardware? No. In MS Windows most hardware is supposed to work, but how often have you heard of it not working out of the box?

What do you do when it doesn't work? Call the support department? Return it when you are unsuccessful?

That is pretty much exactly what I do when buying products for any of the OS's I support. It is up to the hardware manufacturer to make their product work.

I just think that RedHat should stick to answering for their own products instead of generalizing their products as the state of Linux in general. They evaluated their system and found that it wasn't good for the desktop. Therefore they make a press release that Linux is not ready for the desktop, but they will let us all know when it is. They didn't evaluate all Linux desktops to determine this. They evaluated RedHat Linux as a desktop to determine that all Linux is not ready, which is not a fair evaluation of Linux on the desktop. RedHat Linux is not the only Linux. Wouldn't it make more sense to let us know when they have their product ready for the desktop?

Even if you don't think Linux is ready now, don't you think it is reasonable to say that someone besides RedHat could have desktop linux ready before RedHat? Is RedHat going to let us all know when someone else has it ready or when there product is ready?

Hope you understand where I'm coming from. I've been a user of RedHat Linux since 4.0 and I still use it as a server; however, I stopped trying to use it as a desktop a long time ago.

BTW: I don't have an ipod so I don't know first hand, but the ipod pretty well works without much problems I hear. Lindows is supposed to have a one click install and debian testing can use:

apt-get install gtkpod

Re:Ahemm. Cough! Cough!

[sparrow_hawk]

[point]Redhat's distribution is ready.[/point] Don't slam their desktop.

RedHat's *business* *model* may not be ready, however.

Fedora may be test-ware... but so was

[pr0ntab]

RH 7.0 and 8.0.

I don't see the issue. Just wait until the updates to Fedora warrant 1.1, then try it. How is this any different than the past way of doing things?

Re:Fedora may be test-ware... but so was

[pyros]

There will be no Fedora 1.1, just like there was no 8.1 or 9.1. The next release, in about 5 months, will be Fedora 2.

Re:Why bother?

[hdparm]

Funny that you need to post this shit AC. Are you a:

1] Moron?
2] Idiot?
3] Crackhead?
4] Just Plain Stupid?

There comes a time for a man to walk away

[drinkypoo]

Walking away from a free red hat linux with an updated, supported stable branch, is walking away from the users who like linux both Free and free. Lots of people committed to a Linux distribution which cost them no money. They gave their time, their effort, their bug reports, and their mass to red hat linux. The perception is that fedora is not going to be stable. Since people are having trouble with it already, it would seem to be justified.

One hand washes the other.

Walk away, walk away, I'll be a parade

Re:There comes a time for a man to walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

Start submitting those bug reports then... RHL didn't start out perfect either.

I don't need 'enterprise' linux for what I'm running. Linux 'regular' (unleaded, whatever) works just fine (stability's there if you make informed choices; everything else's a RedHerring :). It's their buisness, and therefore their choice on how to be running it, but its not good for business to get people to use something only to pull the rug out a year or two down the road (was $60 a year for a machine not enough? obviously not; dropping the more stable .2+ releases in favor of stability-blinding climbing version numbering didn't help box sales much either, not in the long run). It does not make one feel all that confident about buying into something claimed that will provide 5-7 year support when they yank there current service offering (rhn) after so short a time.

Third party companies like Progeny are going to reap the profits that RedHat is throwing away (along with the extra labor of making the updates, admittedly; in this sense RH might have did the overall market a favor, so I can't be a total flamer here).

Re:There comes a time for a man to walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

Start submitting those bug reports then... RHL didn't start out perfect either.

Umm, start fixing them bugs and submitting those too (I felt that I needed to rebuke my own post ;-).

It takes a village to raise an OS :)

Re:There comes a time for a man to walk away

[drinkypoo]

I wouldn't touch redhat with a twenty foot pole, I'm not going near fedora. There are many users who we would like to get off this windows train, and put them on linux, but redhat has just decreased the number of options available. I'm not putting my mom on a development OS. You really think she's going to submit useful bug reports?

Re:Help is on the way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please hurry!

Ballmer jumping on a stage

[codepunk]

Wow perhaps Ballmer should get up on a stage and say that Linux is a better choice in the data center. I would care to guess that hell would freeze over first. I just got done, tonight as a matter of fact converting a private school to all Linux desktops. I am a RHCE, now ask me what system I installed for them. Thats right I installed Mandrake!. After the desktop comments they can kiss my goatse, I will not ever load one of their systems again, period. The last thing I need is someone helping Microsoft by bashing the Linux desktop.

Re:Fedora is test-ware

[Anonymous Coward]

I have absolutely nothing against RH stopping support for the RH distro. The problem is their feint with Fedora. If they have simply said that their financials require more focus on RHEL, I would be fine with it. Perens pointed out what's wrong with Fedora right after the RH announcement. The fact that they continue to spin it, is insulting to the intelect of their customers and (former) friends.

Though I like fedora...

[jensend]

My two biggest complaints with it are:

1. RH, in its current state of transition and confusion, is aiming Fedora at the non-existent "bleeding-edge corporate desktop" market and thus continuing the RH8 and 9 trend of dumbing it down. Returning to techie roots should involve returning to the more sensible and *more usable* kind of interface we saw in earlier series before people got into the "usability" kicks.

2. Package management. Good grief. It starts with the install: there is no way to select individual packages for installation. After installation, the graphical "install packages" program, which has all sorts of problems up to and including frequent segfaults for many users, still doesn't allow individual package selection either (and hasn't since RH8). Its segfaults and the increasingly common RPM hangs result in locking problems and rpm db corruptions which require, at best, a rpm db rebuild, and at worst enough repair that a total reinstall is recommended instead. Ah, for the days of rpm 3.x and gnorpm! (Man, I miss that program- I've felt for some time that RH failing to put resources into it to keep gnorpm up with the move to gtk2 and later rpm versions was their worst move at least since GCC "2.96".)

What I want to know about Fedora: Support

[sid crimson]

So, Fedora looks interesting. It's the next version of Redhat (v.10) and attempts to continue the "free beer" side of Linux while separating this from the Enterprise offering.

What I want to know is: will security updates be offered in the same timely manner Redhat has offered them before? Their FAQ on the Fedora site is a little ambiguous. Quote their site:

Q: What is the errata policy for The Fedora Project?
A: Security updates, bugfix updates, and new feature updates will all be available, through Red Hat and third parties. Updates may be staged (first made available for public qualification, then later for general consumption) when appropriate. In drastic cases, we may remove a package from The Fedora Project if we judge that a necessary security update is too problematic/disruptive to the larger goals of the project. Availability of updates should not be misconstrued as support for anything other than continued development and innovation of the code base. Updates will be available for two to three months after the release of the subsequent version; that is, updates for Fedora Core 1 will be provided for two to three months after the release of Fedora Core 2, and so forth.

Red Hat will not be providing an SLA (Service Level Agreement) for resolution times for updates for The Fedora Project. Security updates will take priority. For packages maintained by external parties, Red Hat may respond to security holes by deprecating packages if the external maintainers do not provide updates in a reasonable time. Users who want support, or maintenance according to an SLA, may purchase the appropriate Red Hat Enterprise Linux product for their use.

..it sounds like they may not offer timely updates. Or maybe I'm just too sensitive to the [market|lawyer]-speak...? I work in a nonprofit, and am attempting to replace Wintel with Lintel. Redhat has the name, and therefore my boss' attention. If Redhat is no longer available... then he may no longer bite.

He doesn't know what "Fedora" is.

-sid

Before you downmod

[Overly Critical Guy]

Seriously, why does michael get to troll like that?

It's perfectly valid to bring up Censorware in this instance. Michael seems like a very vindictive person. Why, michael?

Just curious.

Uh...what's up with this article's byline?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Just curious why michael feels the need to always interject and tick people off like that. If I posted that, I would have been modded as a troll.

Seems a little unfair, is all.

Another way to look at RH EULA

[Kashif Shaikh]

After looking at RH EULA, and seeing how it is not violating the GPL, here is another way to look at it:

If RedHat charges $5000(/w support) for ES and distributes binaries, then they must provide source to the end-user. This end-user can take the GPL'd source and re-distribute it as they see fit. And This is perfectly legitimate under GPL.

But what Redhat is doing instead is that 'support' is not a fixed cost and it depends on the needs of the organization. Rather than forcing everyone to pay $5000(ahem Windows), Redhat has split the cost into a fixed component and a variable component. The fixed cost is the $349 'up-front' or "buffered" payment for ES. The variable cost depends on the actual support needed.

What's interesting in the RH EULA is that it specifically says just because you paid the 'fixed-cost' does not mean you have paid for the program; but rather you must pay/buy variable-cost support for the product as well. This is clever way to comply with section 3 of the GPL.

If they didn't add this requirement, then $349 would be considered the cost of the program and hence they would have to distribute the source.

The benefit of the up-front cost of $349 is that you can install the product on as many servers as you wish(thus spreading over the cost), but you agree to buy support for each of them. If at anytime you don't agree, then you have to grab their SRPMS and build the binaries yourself.

Finally, I think my parent poster is right, RH could restrict how its binaries must be used -- the GPL is only concerned with providing source for the binaries.

Re:Another way to look at RH EULA

[FatherOfONe]

"The benefit of the up-front cost of $349 is that you can install the product on as many servers as you wish"

This is not true. You have to pay the $350 EVERY year for EVERY server. According to their sales department this is the licence. There is NO breaks for development boxes or test boxes.

This kind of attitude has forced our company to migrate off of RedHat. We are currently looking at Suse, who offers a similar program, but at least they don't kill Operton users at $2,000/year/server.

Having been a "Red Hat Shop", I was supprised how good SuSe 9.0 is. It was great not to have to load and configure JAVA and shockwave.

Re:Another way to look at RH EULA

[Kashif Shaikh]

I don't understand why does redhat charge you $350 bucks then.

When not negotiate a 'per-seat' deal from the start?

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

By moving to Debian you just downgraded to Red Hat 5.x. Debian shipping 2.x kernel by default etc. is just plain stupid now. Stability has been exchanged for usability. Admit it. You where just mining karma. Anything pro-Debian on this site is a +5. You are a moron and so are all the people that mod this down.

Re:Go Michael, go!

[Anonymous Coward]

> from the switch-to-debian dept.

Nice touch, I like it!

Fedora libwnck is buggy ....

[tjwhaynes]

Then I had to switch back from sawfish to metacity window manager. Sawfish just doesn't seem to work with the gnome desktop switcher panel. Metacity is much better now, it allows me to define the keyboard shortcuts that kept me on sawfish for redhat 9.

If you search the mailing lists, you'll find that libwnck is buggy and the problems are visible when used with Sawfish and the Gnome pager. The fixed version is available in CVS and there is a patch for pager.c if you check the relevant bugzilla. No need to abandon Sawfish if you don't want to.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

price matters

[Anonymous Coward]

After 3 years of background work and advocacy, my company started considering the move away from windows.
Thanks to redhats policy, this is now completely down the drain. The main application we need requires redhat enterprise, and even if it would run perferctly on another distro, there will be no consideration to even try this. Official support matters, and price matters.
The conclusion drawn by management is now "linux is more expensive and less known by sysadmins, there is no point in migrating."

I d like to stress here that we don t need support from redhat, what we need is the application support. And from redhat, the sheer possibility to run up2date.

Jeremy Hogan on White Box Linux

[Glass of Water]

He comments on it right here. That's in the comments section after the article.

"It's a perfect example of the power of the GPL. They can do whatever they want. We sell RHEL with a stack of support and services, so it's not competition in the usual sense."

(Nice username, btw.)

Re:Jeremy Hogan on White Box Linux

[elvesRgay]

Thanks for that! That's the first I comment from a RH person I have seen on the subject. If they continue to do what they have been doing and don't go the way Suse has (with Yast being proprietary software) then RH will stay in a good place with me.