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Progeny To Offer Support For Red Hat 8.0 and 9
zerocool^ writes "In a previous story it was noted that Progeny would offer support to Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 customers facing an End of Life deadline of 31 December 2003. Progeny has updated their 'transitional software' offerings to include support for Red Hat 8.0 and 9 for $5 per month, per machine. This is great news for IT folks who are faced with the choice of a new OS or abandoned 1-year-old software."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Progeny Transition Service
NEW! Support added for Red Hat(R) Linux(R) 8.0 & 9
Beginning January 1, 2004, Progeny will offer software updates for users of Red Hat(R) Linux(R) 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, and 9. This service is based on Progeny's Platform Services technology and will provide a flexible migration path for RHL subscribers.
Progeny Transition Service includes the following features:
* Subscribers have access to a software repository containing security updates.
* Patches will also be available via Novell(R)'s Ximian(R) Red Carpet Enterprise(TM) version 2.0.
* Subscribers will be notified of security vulnerabilities and available patches.
* Pricing is $5 per machine per month; or a flat rate of $2,500 per month for unlimited machines.
* Quotes for custom platform services are available.
* Limited to x86 support.
This service is part of Progeny's Platform Services.
MS has stopped support for their old stuff and nobody can help. When Redhat stops, other companies can step forward and help (hopefully, even profit).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Maybe they can do the same thing with Windows 98 while they're at it. ;)
Their initial plans are to roll this out using a password protected website (that could be automated using wget, etc). I would prefer up2date or something similar to keep things updated.
This seems like a pretty big undertaking...I wish them luck with the resources of patching/recompiling all the packages.
This and the IBM Linux commercial, among other things make me feel good that these companies actually want to help out Linux.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
It hurts me to say this but Microsoft let Win98 age to 5 years+ before giving it the knife.
Trolling is a art,
yeah, good luck to them (seriously) - having fought for 4 hours to get apache/php back online all because of a stupid type in redhat's (7.1?) version of openssl (grrrrrr....)
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
$2500 per month for unlimited machines? Google could get one heck of a deal!
Support Windows 98
Memories are short here.
to go OSS, not that many here needed any more encouragement. Imagine if companies could buy support for NT 4 or Win98 for five bucks a machine after next month? There would be some companies still using them ten years from now. Well, some probably will anyway.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's because they're not Microsoft.
When Redhat EOLs its products after a year, they're doing so to remain competitive in a changing marketplace, or something like that.
When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades.
This is Slashdot, remember...
I mean, I'm a nerd of my own and never used a paid Linux user support, but often helped people and many times I faced a problem I couldn't solve "over the phone".
So, how good is such user support?
Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?
(if the above doesn't seem disastrous enough for you, think of your favourite "heavy disaster" scenario that still leaves some hope of recovery)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why so many of us use debian on our servers. Sure, the software is 4 years old - but it isn't a headache to support. It doesn't need upgrades, so none are made unless there's a security problem or a bugfix.
(I'm talking about debian stable, btw)
On the other hand, I think it's fairly dastardly and unsportsman-like for RedHat to drop support for their older products. Granted, there's a lot of stuff there to support - so why not weed out non-critical applications from the list of "supportable installations"? apache, sql, and other "enterprise-class" software?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Windows 98 is older than one year. (actually it is nearly 6) Redhat 8 and 9 however....
Finkployd
RedHat? What about Ford? Silly them to EOL supporting the Model T. Now where the hell am I going to get a pistons for a 177CU 22 HP motor? Now how the hell can I top out at 30MPH?
third partys will not provide updated patches to windows98, windows98 is dead dead dead. whereas OSS like redhat can continue to have *real* support for as long as there is a demand for it.
i dont see why redhat can get away with EOLing its products, and still maintain integrity as a company?
Because people like myself made Redhat who they are today and they were providing a great product. However, since they have been corrupted by wall street and the requirement for massive growth to justify their stock prices, they need to ditch us and look for some other money making scheme.
At the time, however, the company did not specify which products it would continue to support.
No, the best companies keep their valued customers guessing.
Redhat 8 and 9 however.... Can be replaced/upgraded to Fedora for free, the similarity is?
The Linux User's Guide consists of the following "helpful" tidits.
1) RTFM.
2) Install Windows, you luser.
3) Go away.
Errmm perhaps because all companies EOL their products at some stage? Of course if you want to start a company and maintain it on a profitable basis and continue supporting kernel versions and software versions to way back whenever then by all means go ahead and do it. You'll be a hero to all of us.
Who says they have maintained any integrity. My company won't do business with them, ever. Wait another 6 months to see how their bottom line is doing, and you can see what other companies think of them. Personally, I think that they screwed the pooch on this one. What company is going to spend many thousands of dollars in up front costs, training, and time with a company that decided to suddenly drop support for their product not even a year later? It'd be one thing if they were a well-established company. As is, they were still in start-up mode. I personally don't expect them to recover from this one.
$5 a month is a STEAL...
People should jump on this.
I wish the company doing this well.
More power to OSS!!
My guess is it probably has something to do with the fact that RedHat's customers have full access and rights to the source code, and can support themselves indefinitely if that's what they want to do.
Or a third party can support them because they also have full access and rights to RedHat's source code--which is exactly what's happening.
Meanwhile, Windows 9x users, who couldn't fix a bug in/add a feature to the OS if they wanted to, and can't get it from any third-party either, are just plain out of luck.
More of a response than your troll was worth, wasn't it?
Didn't Windows support their stuff for much longer (e.g. Win95)? And with a very long period of backward compatibility (to the detriment of their product) you didn't really need more support.
Meanwhile, every time you turn around all the Linux distros have changed version. When you go to the use groups for help on an "old" version the reply is: "I don't know, but it doesn't do that in the new version." or "Yeah that was a known bug. The new version takes care of it." Thank gawd the upgrades are cheap $$. If only they were cheap in time.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Do my favorite third party software packages work and are they supported on the the perpetually beta-quality Fedora releases? For how long? How often do I have to schedule upgrades?
This may be great for very small systems (home network, family business website that nephew set up.. etc), but if by IT folks, you mean people who are paid to run systems/networks, I don't understand how this is all that helpful. I mean, I'm only a Slackware user who's learned everything from books and friends, but it would seem to me that if you're getting paid to maintain a Linux system, you should already have a few manuals handy and be able to diagnose and solve your problems without resorting to calling some tech support place...
Your company has NEVER done business with Redhat. You have made no bones about being a total Windows bigot. That is fine. It is your money. But to come in here and start lyeing about things is just more FUD from you.
As to their bottom (a pun for you?) line, I suspect that they are doing much better than you are. And even ethically.
No, you're right, Kazaa and your favourite Ad-ware trojans probably won't work, carry on,as you were, I hear ME is rather good, if you're stuck.
I was wondering what version of Fedora supports the Java JDK and the IDE and other tools and middleware I use for development. Is it Fedora CORE or some other one?
I thought one of the purported advantages of Linux was to avoid the Microsoft upgrade cycle? It seems that you've just replaced one upgrade cycle with another more agressive upgrade cycle, totally ignoring the fact that there is a cost to upgrading, even if you pay nothing for the OS.
Is Wine compatible with Fedora?
No, they forgot to make it compatible. Looks like you are stuck with Redhat 5 forever.
Because they produce and distribute upgrades for free and contribute a great deal to the Open Source community.
In other news someone republished the Orange Book here
Maybe you've been stuck it the trenches too long! Funny though, that you can pretend, are you cash or account, I hear account payments are behind, best go for CASH if they allow you that option..
This is Slashdot, remember...
Yup, the home of wintrolls who can't see the difference between EOLing a closed system so it can never be maintained by anyone and an open system that can be picked up by anyone willing and able to sign a contract to do so.
So what if RH stops supporting their old releases? If you're dependent upon them, you can pay someone else, like Progeny, to maintain them. If MS EOLs something, you're SOL.
You Red Hat apologists are worse than the Mac fanatics. Can you possibly come up with a worse analogy than that? Red Hat 9 is less than 1 year old and will cease to receive security updates as of the end of April! That's like announcing you'll no longer be able to get parts or service for your 2003 Ford Explorer after April. Oh, and your support warranty? Sorry, that's going to be discontinued, but we'll give you a discount on upgrading to one of our new 2004 Ford Expeditions with the extended warranty coverage for your trouble. People that actually buy into Red Hat Enterprise Linux are morons if they think Red Hat won't do this to them again. How will you like your shiny new copy of RHEL 3 when you find out it'll be EOL'd in a year and you'll be forced to upgrade to RHEL 4 if you want to continue to get basic security updates? Even Microsoft is a LOT better than that. Windows 2000 came out in 1999 and still is updated quite frequently. I have some serious decisions I need to make within the next few months. Do I want to continue with this Linux experiment or go back to a tried and proven company that respects their customers like Microsoft. I can't afford to reinstall my OS every year... Sorry Red Hat, but you lose my business.
You pay nothing Slim, how much did your last MS upgrade cycle cost you, and how long before you got a virus? Come on, come on, please tell, oh, you forked more money for anti-virus? Well done, and you only have reboot twice a week now, that must be a relief!
When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades
That is one of the most one dimensional, insipid statements I have ever heard. Hello groupthink, goodbye clue!
i dont see why slashdot can get away with banning its users, and still maintain integrity as a company?
Its a matter of a company claiming they are selling a secure product, then saying ohh yeah, if you want to make it secure you have to pay someone else to do it, its crazy. Im not talking aout upgradeing to the newest software for free, im saying security flays in things like the kernel, sendmail, openssh, ect. If MS tried charging for windowsupdate everyone would be up in arms about how evil MS is. Saying that becouse its OSS your free to patch it yourself, or pay someone else to do it, is a good way to get people to switch to windows, or another distro that doesnt charge for security updates such as debian
Not sure about anyone else out there, but when I support a linux machine beyond the simplest procedural things (check here, then check here, etc.), I need to at least have a shell. There are simply some things that don't occur often enough to have an indepth recollection of, and a visual reminder is helpful.
When someone pays for support, what they're paying for is expertise more than anything. They want their problems fixed, and quickly. Usually it involves simply installing someone else's fix, on occasion it means fixing it yourself.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As for "...how long? I would imagine as long as there's community support and corporate interest.
C|N>K
Couldn't a company just download the updates to 1 machine, (aka 1 license) and just create their own auto update system? I would assuume these programs exists. So basiclly a company for $5.00 per month could keep their entire network uptodate.......
TruePunk | Games
I think what users of Red Hat 8 and 9 are looking for is package management and security fixes. Like you, I've never used tech support, except to configure hardware devices for other people. Then, I read the manual and call the vendor's dial up line to get it right. That has nothing to do with "user support" though.
In the windoze world you are just as screwed as you are elsewhere. If the box won't boot, you need to take it to someone or have someone look at it.
Your case leads you two places. Either you have a hardware problem or you don't. If you have a hardware problem with a hard disk and don't have an identical disk, you have to send it off to someone who does who might be able to spin it up for you. Chances are, you are hosed. Software problems are much more rare, but you will be fixed.
Free software is amazinly resiliant. I've actually formatted a hard disk to fat, wrote data onto it and then had Linux boot! Not just Lilo trying to load a blown up kernel, but the kernel loading and device modules loading. It scared my little brother to death because the fat partition had customer data on it. In any case, fsck generally fixes screwed up file systems without data loss because it's very redundant. I've been running a system with a known bad root partition for half a year now. Every other boot it comes up with a corrupted root partition and is fixed by fsck without fuss. That's something you could walk a customer through on the phone. If the drive is really zapped worse than a partial format, you need Knoppix to get your list and all is well. This too, you could walk a client through and then shell into the box yourself, but it may require a visit. Now for my nighmare.
In the windoze world, things are not as robust. The worst case is some poor little box that's been exposed to the internet, gimped up with IE powerbar, gator wallet, and other malware, viruses that turn off all virus software you try, kazaa, and well, your typical M$ hell hole owned by some nasty fat chick who's worried about her job and thinks she knows about computers. The box will have to be rebuilt all over and you might not get the data, depending on what wrote it. If they trusted MS Access to keep it ... oh well partial recovery may be possible but good luck and never do that again. I will turn a job like that down and let the fool who set it up suffer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Perhaps you missed the sarcasm. I was writing my post in the same manner that the typical Slashdot Linux zealot would.
Hey, I do Linux support, too. Can I get a free plug on slashdot?
Then again, with linux you are not limited to what 1 single supplier thinks they can make you swallow. There are alternatives, debian, SuSE, etc. You are not limited to RH||Microsoft.
But you knew this, of course, and just left it out for rhetorical reasons.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
I don't think user support covers such scenarios.
I doubt calling microsoft in order to recover your important non-backed up data after a power failure curropted the disk will be successful either.
User support tends to cover things like: "my email isn't working", "the machine spews an error message at boot", and "the internet is broken".
I cant think of any software company that would support you within a situation like this. if your expect support like this the closest I could think of is the platinum (200.00 per month) dell support for servers.
$5.00 per month gets you access to the downloads, anything else is your problem.
TruePunk | Games
Redhat supports all software released on the CD/iso for one cost, does MS do this HELL NO!!! They charge you per product so of course they are going to continue support for the long run. It is the best source of income especially for customers who take their time between upgrades
Also redhat wants to move to AS range of products, which is a good idea if you are largish corporation(or have high traffic/server load) that needs support then you should be looking as these products anyway as they are certified with major 3rd party software vendors (IE oracle etc..) are a fare better product for production environments
PS if you are a linux/unix admin and can't manage redhat 7.3/8/9 from doco's on the net, magazines and books then you really should think about some training
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
As the current situation proves, what Red Hat sells has value. Because anyone can step up to the plate and make things work, someone will. Because Red Hat has something of value the company will continue to have value, even if the worst things you might say about what they are doing were true.
Of course, they have not really dumped anything. The last two interviews that Slashdot had with Red Hat CEOs should have cleared up all of this FUD. People are not in anyway left with such a poor choice as abandoning 1 year old software or moving to a whole new OS. I don't feel like treading all of that ground again, go read the interviews. Let's just say that I know people running Red Hat 6 without security or performance problems, it should not be hard for individual users to transition to Fedora and corporate users are going to have their needs looked after as always.
We can contrast the situation with Micorosoft's EOL for win98. In that case the "support" was not worth much to begin with as you were still rooted once a year like clockwork. Who's going to pick up the "support" for systems like that? They are going to go the same place Win 3.1 and win 95 systems have gone - liberated or trashed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?
I am trying to get some support on my Linux boxes, but I don't need it on the internal network. Not everyone needs 100% or 0% service. If the computer at the front desk dies, I have a backup box I throw there until I figure out whats wrong, or replace the box. If the dedicated web server goes down, I will gladly pay anything for help to get it up NOW. If the front desk computer dies, and I don't have a backup computer, well, go to the other computer in the warehouse. If the web server dies at 3AM, I drive there, make a pot of coffee, and either fix it, remount the drives in a backup server, restore backups to the server or a backup server, or get my ass chewed. Our firewall has a backup computer that is preconfigured so I can throw the dead firewall out, plug in the old backup, and have everyone back online in 10 minutes. We run two isolated T1 lines that the firewall can switch back and forth from, from a ssh shell anywhere. A single saleman's computer is not nearly as critical.
Some systems are simply too critical to NOT pay for service. Some are not.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Speaking as an atypical linux zealot:
I don't hate stupid open source industry decisions because the open source industry isn't trying to cram DRM up my ^H^H^H^H^H^Hdown my throat. The open source industry doesn't hire ATF bigshots to scare me into tolerating their monopoly. And the open source industry doesn't demand a 50 dollar OS-that-I'll-never-use-tax on my wallet. No, I'll for-the-most-part tolerate, if with a little grumbling, stupid open source industry decisions.
On the other hand I'll unabashedly glory in every stupid decision that comes out of Hollywood and Redmond.
Thank you.
"...respects their customers like Microsoft."??? You have got to be the single biggest idiot ever to post on ./ If you truly believe this pedantic drivel, you obviously haven't ever dealt with them in any long-term customer capacity other than as a home luser. And if you're "experimenting with Linux", you're probably too steeped in GUI-pidity to understand the niceties associated with a *nix OS and it's elegant underpinnings. Go back and play with windows little boy while the adults get their work done.
You did BOTH, so I think they are going to send slashdot geeks to your house to kill your sister and rape your cat.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
there's more than a shred of truth to that quip about Google....
Let's say you spend $30,000/year for unlimited patch access and you have a 4000 node linux server farm that has an expected usable life of no more than 3 years.
That's $90,000 for "lifetime" patching of 4000 machines or a $22.50 uplift on purchase price of each individual machine for lifetime patching.
Redcarpet licenses cost a whole lot more than that!
I can't wait for Progeny to offer their patching services for Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.0... oh wait... isn't Redhat Planning on making all of their money from Support?!?
Poor Redhat...
I'm not telling anyone to do it themselves. I'm saying they CAN do it themselves (this is an option they don't have with Windows)
They also have the option of getting support from any other vendor willing to sell it (which is also an option they don't have with Windows).
As long as there are customers wanting support, and there's no technical or legal hurdles preventing someone from providing support, someone will provide it.
The above choices are for *perpetual* support--you can keep getting support in this manner until the sun blows up.
All of these choices are unavailable on Windows. So what does switching to Windows get you? Either you get no support at all from anyone, or you get vendor support from Microsoft until they EOL the product, and then you get no support at all from anyone. Tough choice.
See, these ad hominem attacks are what's giving Linux a bad image in various circles to begin with. It's people like you who are creating the impression that desktop Linux is for elitists who sit in darkened basements watching The Matrix Reloaded in a console, illuminated only by the glow of your riced-out computer with blinking blue LEDs and adhesive case window "etchings." The ultimate irony is that while you call his post "pedantic drivel" (I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this assertion), yet do absolutely naught to discredit it. "Elegant underpinnings?" Sure, they're elegant, but why? Or are you too elite to go into detail? If you don't know, you're too stupid to ever get it, right?
You are little more than a stereotype of the community. Just look at the words you're using. Luser? Little boy? GUI-pidity? This sort of vapid senselessness is why it took me until this year to make the jump to Linux, because if I wanted help with anything, I had to either pay for commercial support or put up with assholes like you.
If I had any mod points, you'd get 'em.
Some in the Linus community don't understand why it's not making more headway onto the corporate desktop. The reason is that the vast majority of corporate computer users are like the people they show in those stupid Office 2003 commercials. They wear button-downs w/ ties, they work in big sterile buildings, and they want their software to have an easy-to-use GUI to lead them through their work. And this goes even more for the C-level people who make the IT spending decisions.
If something goes wrong, they don't want to hear about what a "luser" they are, or that they should jump into bash and run a script, or have to upgrade their OS after a year because the "old" one is no longer supported.
MS takes a lot of grief over their Service Packs, but truth be told, it's a pretty effective way to maintain things over a reasonable lifetime.
No sig, sorry.
redhat has always maintained that rhl will be supported for 1 year after release. the rhl 9 expiration is one year after it was released.
rh enterprise is supported for five years after release. this has not changed.
Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?
Dunno. Maybe ask on one of the Debian lists once the machine hosting them is back up.
*shoots hoop*
I've read an awful lot of "see this is why open source is good" and "hah! Windows 98 had free support for 5 years", so let's just boil this down a little.
No one (except maybe a few deluded individuals) are claiming that Redhats EOL after only a year is a particularly nice thing to have happen. I'm not that happy about it, but I can push on with Fedora which actually works quite nicely, and all will be well. But the short answer is: EOL after a year is a bad thing no matter who does it. Equally, I think Microsoft supporting Windows 98 for 5 years is not a bad effort all things considered (and there will be fewer who will agree with me on that, but hey).
I think the point being made here is NOT that Redhat EOLing after a year is good, or terribly acceptable. The point is that, under this system, in the worst case if the company you are with ups stakes and moves to a different market and leaves you in the cold, you have some recourse.
I think it is great that Microsoft has provided 5 years of support for Windows 98. The catch is, if they were to decide t EOL Server 2003 tomorrow, there's not a whole lot anyone could do about it (especially given the healthy degree of lockin Microsoft has gained). I don't think that Microsoft will do that, but then we don't know. I do recall there was some fuss recently about whether the latest OS X patches were going to available for Jaguar. Had they not been, what would Apple users been left with? Or, to look at it another way, BeOS got seriously EOLd a while ago. There are some fine efforts with OpenBeOS to reconstruct it, but that's no small task, and until they manage something BeOS is effectively dead (well, okay, there's Zeta, but that was a lucky save). This is a demonstration that, in the worst case for a Linux Distro, it's not the end.
So, to reapeat: EOL - bad. Continuing Support - good.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I have a heavy commitment to Redhat, without it I don't have to upgrade a server, I have to upgrade many of them. I am not going to spend thousands on Enterprise Redhat, that would be the very reason I went for the "free" OS in the first place. I tried the switch to Debian on one of them and after some mucking around got it going adequately. As someone who's lived their entire linux life in Redhat land, Debian's a nasty shock. The install process is a nightmare and all the conf files are in different places. BUT you live and learn and it's not that hard... after all, that's what google's for! :)
On the other hand, i stuck the Severn disks into my one of my redhat 9 servers and said 'upgrade'. I know this will get rebuked but it worked perfectly. So i put it in a few more. Now i've got about 4 Redhat-9 boxes, 1 Debian box and 3 Severn boxes. All work fine and to be honest, which do i prefer? Severn...
My point? Give it a shot - it's free and it's basically identical to Redhat 9 (with Apt + Yum built in).
can i just throw into the mix two things?
Redhat cost what now? $0.00?? That's right, it was free. If you spent money installing it or supporting it, so what, the package was free.. Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. You don't complain when someone gives you a free VCR that they won't come and fix it a year later, even if YOU did go and put all your favourite movies on tape...
Plus they SAID Redhat 9 would only get 1 year of support at release time! So what are you all complaining about? If anyone had read the info at the time (and i myself didn't and likewise got caught out on this, i may point out) you'd have maybe thought about another distro??
And stop bitching. It's not like RedHat is the only game in town. There's SuSE (now backed by Novell, and you can hardly say they're minor) and for the do-it-yourselfer, there's Debian, Gentoo, Slack, and even Fedora.
Whats to stop someone with 1000 boxes running their own apt suppository (i know, i prefer this term, seems more errr accurate) from paying $60 per annum for a single box with every package installed, and simply copying the rpm packages from the /var/cache/path to the repository?
M
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
Fedora Legacy will be offering free updates for RedHat versions 7.3, 8.0 and 9.
The only reason I'd see to pay for support is when things break... Kind of like car insurance you can buy after an accident... hmm.
No is was a horribly brightly coloured man with two small tufts of hair that starts fires.
"When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades."
I think you missed the point in this article. Whem Microsoft EOLs its products, YOU HAVE NO ALTERNATIVES. When RH EOLs its products, you can turn to any company willing to offer support.
Since the source code isn't available for Windows, you just don't have that option. Therefore, Microsoft has a much higher responsibility with how it handles product lifecycles.
Engineering and the Ultimate
> With every new release that Microsoft makes, they're trying to compel you to upgrade for one reason or another
No doubt. That's how retail software works -- you sell upgrades by providing new, compelling features.
OTOH, "Enterprise" software makes it's money on ridiculous maintenance fees. There's no encouragement for the customers to move forward and there's incentive for the vendors to significantly improve their product. Many a mainframe customer spends thousands of dollars a year for a 15 year old utility.
Quite frankly, I thought it was clear that the Retail Model was superior. However, if you want to pay top dollar for your out-of-date "Enterprise" shit, go right ahead.
poobah
first of all, if you wnat, you can STILL downlaod 5.x, 6.x etc iso's. yes, go to ibiblio.org. they're there. hell, even rh1.x is still there. the point is, with OSS, whether RH or anyone else, a newer version usually includes newer versions of the same software. of course, many times newer versions are compiled against different glibc/gcc versions. by not supporting, they aren't saying you can't get. and they sure as hell aren't saying you can't look at the source, modify, etc. now, is someone gonna take say, samba 2.0.x or 2.2.x etc, and try to upgarde it, you are more than welcome to. what RH is saying is that they'll support you with the latest versions of FREE software. why the hell should they go back and support older code bases.
the biggest difference is this: when you "upgrade" windows, you have to redo a shitload of things. you can go from apache 1.3 to 2.0 and pretty much keep the same httpd.conf file. what pisses me off most (of course, bill and the boys could give a shit!!) is that they force you to upgarde to keep their money coming in (which is fine) but they do so by making it damn near impossible to maintain heterogenous environments. they do it on purpose. the actual analogy is that Ford makes cars that don't run on current unleaded gasoline. rather, you need to use newer gasoline. and gee, guess what, the gas comes from ford.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
People who get support at that level from the likes of SUN are usually paying $10,000/month for their support contract.
For a measly $5,000, I'll hunt down a copy of whatever version of Linux you're running on that box, Install it on my machine, fly down to your office, use my box to recover whatever's left of your disk, and get it running again to the best of my ability. Unless you're doing something strange that requires that you stay with an old distro, I'll even take a good run at getting you going on a more recent copy of the OS, on a 2 year old used server that I got off of another customer last week (but with a newer hard disk) -- probably 4 times as fast as whatever you had things running on yesterday.
Yep. That's right... All for the low, low price of $5,000. Try and get that from sun (and don't even bother trying to get that sort of support from Microsoft).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
yeah and in 2000 everyone PAID MS for the product. %99 of Redhats users downloaded it for free then download updates for free. If redhat was extracting a 'tax' from every soul on the planet like MS. I'm sure they'd hire 10 more guys to compile updates longer. Comparing a company that just had its first profit to one that has more money than most country's is f***ing stupid and you should be disgusted with yourself.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
BUT when Microsoft EOLs its products, its now 6 or 7 years down the track. If an Open Source company EOLs its products 3 years down the track, thats 3 or 4 years of support you have to pay for, added to the time it takes you to find and organize the support. Or you're forced to upgrade - and spend time and effort doing it.
That's "Free as in Hidden Cost that no one talks about".
Yes. You pay nothing but the time and effort it takes you to download, install, configure, and troubleshoot the upgrade. Free! Free! Free!
RedHat may be EOLing their support for 7.3, but as long as there are enough people still using it who are willing to pay the price, there will be somebody who will make critical (and even not-so-critical) patches available -- even if it has to be done in-house.
For people with (the just recently EOLed) Win/98 the options for support are .... well, I might as well just take them out to the barn and shoot them. It's not just difficult for me to provide any meaningfull support for Win'98.. If you believe their EULA, it's pretty much illegal. When MS EOL's XP, you won't even have the option of transferring to a new box/HD if something goes wrong with your hardware, because the OS will just self-destruct, and MS won't want to talk to you about it.
Another example of what happens when you trust yourself to closed soure is what happened to Israel with hebrew support on Mac Office. It's to Microsoft's advantage to get them to move to Windows instead, so they just decided to not support it on the Mac. No ammount of money that Israel offered them is going to get them to change their mind, because Microsoft wants Israel to be a Windows-only country. It has bull squat to do with cutomer service or direct profit. The country of Israel is at the mercy of Microsoft's (larger) business plan.
Isreal's answer is that they're moving to Open Office on the Mac -- but wait! OO isn't supported on OSX! That's OK. Israel can pay for a small skunk-works to get it working, and get OO's hebrew support up to snuff. No forcing anybody to do anything there... they want it, they can afford to pay someone to do it, it gets done.
QED
First Germany, now Israel... next, the world , (bwahahahaha!).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Sure you could do that. You could also buy one copy of Windows and load it onto all your PCs as well. All Progeny has to do is outlaw that activity in the EULA and anything after that is piracy or breach of contract.
since I'm sure you know this (initial plans..) but for those who missed it they cover this in their FAQ. Basically if there is enough interest (read $$) to support it they will do it, but they are just testing the waters and would be smart not to invest too many resources until they know we'll pony up (they'll get my $60).
Quack, quack.
Linux is gathering momentum, and like the snowball rolling down the hill in the cartoons, it's picking up mass at the same time. When it reaches the bottom of the hill it'll have velocity and mass and therefore plenty of inertia to smash into microsoft, and hopefully it will be big enough to, if not break them into bits, at least make a good-sized dent, rather than blowing up into a cloud of loose ice particles. (Though actually, this is a stupid metaphor. Software doesn't explode (unless it's written by M$, Corel, or sometimes Borland, ha ha) but instead fizzles out. However since I have no real way to come up with a metaphor which ends in fizzling out (fireworks perhaps? eh it would be a waste of time) I will choose to end my post here.
As Carlin says (approximately), I have no ending for this, so I take a small bow.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know there's supposed to be a difference between the two in your post, but I'll have to admit I don't see it... MS's biggest competitor is their older products.
The Penguin Producer
Red Hat is not really getting away with this, as they are losing a lot of their former free help. But, on the other hand, the older versions of RedHat use older versions of source, and face it, when you are a developer, why would you want to re-invent the wheel on old source when the problem has already been fixed in a newer version of the software. Then again, in sources based Distro's, and Debian, I believe you get updates on every part of the distro, so you are always using the latest source, and thus no problems with EOL'ing stuff. Binary Distro's Like Red Hat does not make much sense these days anymore...
Time flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana.
This is Slashdot, remember...
Home to a million Microsoft astroturfers and trolls, all desperate for their daily fix of Linux news...
This move make well move progeny quite a bit forward in the linux market. But they have to be really carefull not to get burned.
They have to make it very clear to their customers what exactly they are offering. Support? How much support and in what way? Will they offer security updates? Bugfixes? Updates? Helpdesk? On site consultants?
Which of them does not really matter, just as long as they communicate clear and fair what their offer comprises. Otherwise they will get a bad rep, no matter their intentions to do things right. Customers have certain expectations, gained throught expectations with RH, and the perceived offers bu Progeny. Keeping that sane is not an easy task.
the pun is mightier than the sword
The way I see it, they are not in business of selling a service, but of selling the software. And as Red Hat has seemingly learned, selling software and GPL are sort of mutually exclusive.
What stops me from subscribing to their updates, for one machine, $60/yr, and later sharing the packages I have downloaded to the rest of the world? Remember, all RH packages were covered by GPL, the patches Progeny will apply are covered by GPL, therefore the packages they provide are covered by GPL.
On the other hand if they were to provide an up2date service like Red Hat used to, now that would be a service... OK they do with Red carpet, but they are trying to sell me something that is free (as in "speech", and I believe also as in "beer") for $5/mo... Why should I pay?
First of all, I would like to say that while I'm not a Red Hat zealot, I'm am a Red Hat sympathizer. I've been a Red Hat user since RHL 4.2, and will continue to use their products when possible. I'm not the happiest with what has happened in the recent months, but I see that this will overall be best for the company.
:)
I manage about 40 machines, most of which are currently running RHL 7.2 and 7.3. We are in the process of transitioning to a gentoo-based distro. A custom stage 3 tarball has been created that can be plopped onto a server and already contains the extra utilities needed as a base level for our servers (ntpd, screen, etc). I've frozen the portage tree, and are side-porting updated software that has been released as the result of a GLSA. This prevents the server set from being too "bleeding edge", while still being secure.
That being said, it'll take a good deal of time to convert 40 servers over from RHL to gentoo. The Progency announcement is great for us, it gives us a bit of insurance against a flaw coming out that we can't immediately solve. Personally, I'd like nothing more than running RHEL on our servers. RHEL focuses more on stability than new whiz-bang features, and the 5-year support life is a plus. But RHEL costs money, money we can't really justify right now. And unfortunately, our business size (small to medium) is no longer the target customer size for Red Hat's business. They're going after the 1000ish-server and 10000ish-workstation market. Again, annoyed, but at least understandable.
I see Red Hat's biggest mistake being announcing the Fedora project AFTER announcing the EOLs on RHL. If they would have announced Fedora and released Fedora Core 1, say 6 months before even announcing the EOL of RHL products, it would have eased the fears of many people. I have Fedora Core 1 running on a workstation, and it works pretty damn well IMHO. But I would not run it in a production environment yet because it's new and unproven and scary.
Secondly, the argument about RHL 9 being out less than a year before being EOLed: Red Hat DID announce that they would only be supporting RHL 9 for a short time, but they probably should have said it louder than they did. Alternatively, if they would have gotten off the ground with the Fedora project earlier like I mentioned above, RHL 9 should have become Fedora Core 1, and would have played into the above strategy.
So that's my take on this. Red Hat could have done things much differently to avoid annoying the smaller linux sysadmin, but that's all in the past now. Like it or not, Red Hat is moving in a new direction, and I wish them the best of luck. I just wish that my position didn't prevent me from moving along with them. Also, kudos to Progency for stepping up to the plate and providing transition support for these products.
By the way, it's "Red Hat". Not "RedHat". Just because the two words in their company name are short doesn't allow you to merge them together. Pretty soon you'll have people going to Slash Dot to read about AlanCox speaking out against Micro Soft
Just want to toss my $.02 in and nod in agreement, because I have no mod points to give. There are jerks using Linux, and there are jerks using Windows. They have nothing to do with corporate adoption. The relative scarcity of Linux specialists (administrators) is more likely a reason.
I'm also not sure why people think Linux should be making any faster inroads into corporate America... Your point on inertia is exactly correct.
Seems to me if you step out of the trees and look at the whole forest, "we're" (the Linux community) doing pretty well.
Red Hat did offer Fedora as a free replacement. Microsoft dont offer anything, just an option to spend more money on their latest product.
I wonder what companies, if any, will sign up for the Progeny offering?
Almost all legitimate businesses attempt to stay compliant wrt software licensing. I only assume Progeny will have some eula lingo that limits seats/updates.
I would have loved to have thrown a few hundred dollars at redhat over the last few years. They walked away from the table.
Erm, RHEL will be supported until October 2008. Your point is...?
This is actually bothering us. A vendor wanted a RedHat 8 server for a mugshot database about six months ago. We've finally gotten to that phase of our project and were updating our quotes. We had 2 changes in our quotes from Redhat 8 to Redhat 9 and the price dropped. Well, we send all that updated vendor requirements to Dell. Our Dell guy says that they no longer carry Red Hat 8 or 9, but a Red Enterprise. I jump over to Red Hat's website and find 3 different versions of RHEL. (All this for a box that will just be an image server. Grr.)
If Red Hat can do this and gets away with it, in six months Apple & MS will boldly follow the new OS business method of dumping support for year old products. I envision a 90 day warranty period on software where you can get all the patchs but after that time all service stops. I really hope that I'm a bad futurist.
Dont take away their false sense of superiority- its all they have left!
Sure, please tell me if you want to upgrade/migrate my customer's live mail system with custom-built MTA from Red Hat 8 to Debian. I'll pay you 20 bucks.
I don't know about you, but my time and effort are worth quite a bit to me. If you put that little value on yours, well, that's your problem. Some people don't even know they have upgraditis. Even in the corporation I can't stand how often RedHat obsoletes their OS. Last time I had to reboot Linux? LAST WEEK WHEN THE FRIGGIN KERNEL FLAW WAS REVEALED, JACKASS!!
Rebooted Windows in the past week? What are you talking about? I haven't rebooted my Win2k box for a month now, and never gotten a virus (though I admit I bought the antivirus out of FUD). Sounds like you're spinning some FUD of your own, though. So much for being open minded.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
You got it. Because everyone knows that all those little support payments for being able to use up2date aren't keeping RedHat afloat. All those free downloads are boosting RedHat's profits as we speak!! Oh, no, Red Hat is not about profit. But evil Microsoft, however, whoa! Their tactics are worse than the Khmer Rouge.
Gimme a break. You know damn well that RedHat wishes they were in Microsoft's place, pressing the boot down on Sun's head just as MSFT is now. This "yay RedHat" crap is all just ignorant fanboy cheering. Any good admin knows that you use the right OS in the right place. I'm a big fan of RedHat on the backend, but give me my Win2k/XP at the client side any day. I'm very frustrated with RedHat's quick obsolecense of any OS. They know that the most support is needed when a new OS is released, so they force people to upgrade to something new and different to boost support sales every year. No different from these companies that put out meager feature enhancements (buggyfeatures , I might add) every quarter to boost the bottom line.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Isn't it also pathetic this basically says that RedHat is putting their best effort into the Enterprise version, but playing fast and loose with the freely available version?
Watch out! Don't use Fedora for business. Goodness knows where they got their libraries from, but it's not Enterprise worthy. Want stability? Fork over some cash and we'll give you the real deal.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Those are alternatives for a home user--not for a company. Companies buy Red Hat because they provide support for companies using their distro.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The average home Linux user probably downloaded RedHat ISOs and installed it without paying RedHat any support costs. Most RedHat users I know don't use up2date rather apt-get or just manage their own RPMs.
When security patches for Apache are released I'm sure someone is going to release RedHat 9 packages for it. When a new kernel is released I'm sure someone is going to release packages for it (or at least sources that compile in RedHat 9's environment). I image just about any popular software package will be released/packaged/tested on RedHat 9 until it's unpopular enough to forget. You may not be able to up2date them but that was probably a bad idea anyway. Apart from the set of RedHat-specific software (which, on the free version I can only think of the config tools and installer) what exactly is losing support?
The situation may be different for enterprise customers with support contracts which is why independent commercial support exists. And $5/mo/mac sound extremely reasonable for enterprise support.
I guess that's the cool thing about Linux. Just because RedHat says stop, noone has to listen... there really is no EOL until enough people quit using it that noone bothers to package or compile their software for it.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I've been using rh9 on my home system for a few months now and managing fine so far without asking questions in forums etc. but if I had to ask a Linux related question, I'd be really careful how I asked it. I would feel like I had to creep around and lick some serious ass in the sort of "I'm sure I'm displaying serious ignorance here and I've searched and blah blah but if someone could just drop me a few crumbs/clues about this issue I'd be very grateful...". This is despite the fact I've been working in IT for 20 years. If I feel like this then I imagine it's a lot worse for the truly inexperienced.