Posted by
michael
on from the switch-to-debian dept.
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."
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
by
yiantsbro
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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
by
flacco
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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.
-- pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I guess I am lucky...
by
Chicane-UK
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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:)
-- "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Fedora in production
by
tellurian
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
"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.
Enterprise class: RHEL: Yes, Redhat: No
by
Masarand
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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.
Red Hat / Fedora confusion
by
0xA
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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
by
0xA
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You're confused, I'm confused, so is the RH sales guy. None of this makes sense any more.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
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.
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.
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.