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Red Hat Recap
We have some assorted Red Hat stories which can be - and in fact already have been - jumbled together for your reading pleasure, like a sort of literary succotash. Forbes has an accusatory piece about Red Hat's licensing model, which is apparently, err, Microsoft-esque. Red Hat reminds everyone that RH9 is not going to be officially supported for much longer. Internetnews.com has a brief interview with Red Hat's CEO.
i'm going to have to upgrade my machines, but am NOT going to pay $179 to do it, but can't trust the possibility of Fedora adding/removing/changing things willy-nilly (i know there's more care taken than that, but not the kind of care that will taken with Enterprise for Workstations and it's siblings). i'm not sure which distro will upgrade my RedHat installs with the least disruption. And i hate to sound like a crufty old man, but i'm used to the RH tools and don't really desire to learn the in's and out's of a new distro, but i 'spose i'll have to.
*shakes head at RedHat*
It doesn't get a free pass; RH is just free to offer any stupid EULA they can come up with. However if you accept such EULA then it would be none other than you who constricted your own freedom.
Forbes seems rather optimistic about linux - just take a look at their 'linux at work' sidebox.
Linux Loyalists Leery
- IBM Refuses To Indemnify Linux Users
- Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit
- IBM Takes Linux To A New Level
- Why You Won't Be Getting A Linux PC
- The Limitations Of Linux
- Boies' Take On Linux
- PeopleSoft Jumps On The Linux Train
- Oracle's Linux Lineup
- The Cult Of Linux
#!/bin/csh cat $0
Forbes as a whole doesn't. Daniel Lyons does. I don't know why. Some people compare him with Laura Didio or with Robert Enderle but that doesn't seem accurate; Didio is a dupe, Enderle is a professional troll out to get page hits for his articles, Lyons does seem to be inspired by deep seated feelings of spite towards users of Linux and/or free software. This article was mild by his standards, but you can still see it there. Try Googling for some of his other Linux related stuff if you don't believe my overall assessment.
The job used to be having to explaing OSS and Linux, sell it, and if they wanted Red Hat, fine. It was the least of your worries.
Red Hat is now three separate moving targets:
fedora
rhel
rh9
Present that to a business person and they just say... "Thank you. Next".
They claim the cost of switching ditributions is very high, potentially involving rewriting a lot of code that you had written that may have taken advantage of features of the particular distribution.
That one strikes me as a little odd - I've been pretty distribution agnostic myself, and never really had any problems moving from one to another. At worst you can just install a few extra packages to cover some version differences. Then again, I'm a single user - I'm not trying to maintain an enterprise wide system, nor do I really have any experience with such things.
So, my question is, how big are the costs of an enterprise changing distributions? I can certainly understand some significant cost (potential retraining, reorgansing the system a little to work with any new structures) but I can't quite imagine it being that high. If I had to guess, I would imagine it not being overly different from say, upgrading from Windows2k to WindowsXP or some such.
Can someone with some experience in this provide some insight?
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Since Red Hat is open source, you have at least the following choises: Cent OS, and Tao Linux. Both being clones of RHEL.
...unless you've specifically written code for some of any proprietary apps included with a distro (which should be quite obvious if you do) then I don't see the problem.
If anything, I'd be worried about user training. Different distros may look quite different on the surface, and normal users might have trouble finding stuff. But I don't think it's worse than a Windows version change...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I work at a University so we can purchas RH Enterprise Workstation licenses for $25 and Advanced Server licenses for $50. I've found RHEL to be an excellent, stable distro. RHN in particular is very well done. I love being able to reboot or update my systems through rhn.redhat.com and have errata automatically applied with no interaction on my part. I realize businesses pay considerably more $$$ for RHEL but remember, you're still paying for services (errata, installation support, etc). If you don't have the dough, Fedora is still an excellent product. FC1 started out a little shaky but has stabilized considerably. FC2 is on it's way to becoming an excellent modern Linux distro. RedHat remains committed to Open Source (they still don't deal with *any* closed source code), they still are one of the largest organizational contributors to the Linux Kernel project, Apache, Samba, etc. RedHat has a great future IMHO....
Wrong. They only place restrictions on their distribution. The GPL software remains GPL. You can download the source packages that are in RHEL freely from RedHat's FTP site.
If you remove redhat-logos and anaconda-images (something like that) you can roll your own distribution based off RHEL without worrying about their EULA.
Where do you think projects like White Box Linux and others came from?
In it, the user agrees not to install RHEL on machines not covered by a service agreement and that if they are caught doing so they may be charged penalties by Red Hat.
This text is quite clear. If you are using RHEL, you're bound by the agreement. It's not specific to their services agreement. Plus this: It's pretty difficult to read this any way other than as it is written. If you're using RHEL, you're bound to such gems as this: and"Red Hat Professional Workstation... Enterprise Linux for personal use"
The above quote is from redhat.com
Seems they're rethinking their corporate focus after the backlash from the RHL screw up. So which is it RH, enterprise or personal? Thought you guys didn't want personal users? You've lost my business for good... business & personal.
a) FC1 updates RH9 fine
Yup. In fact, I went insane yesterday and installed yum on my RH9 box. I then used it to upgrade to FC2test2 while everything was running (including X), I then restarted X and boom, I'm running FC2test2.. including the x.org X11. I still need to reboot to use the 2.6 kernel instead of RH9's 2.4 kernel.
The only problem I had was I had ximian installed, and had to uninstall a couple of ximian packages.
It may or may not be your cup of tea, but after being annoyed for a long time with my RedHat server I made the switch to FreeBSD. The set-up was a snap for me, and I haven't had so much as a hiccup out of the system. People can make all the "BSD is dead!" jokes they want, but I'm in love with it.
Too many people (not necessarily the Parent, but other's in this thread) are too quick to write off the Other White Meat, as it were.
--Obyron
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Ah, you sound young to the word of *nix, heh
/home are the setting files for programs. Windows/Novell profiles on the other hand are the opposite. Only policies are uploaded while apps are local to the client. I am hoping Novell will change this after they buy SuSE.
.so's or newer versions of glibc are incompatible with the old versions?
But I switched because upgrading IS HELL ON LINUX. It really is simpler on FreeBSD. All the ports are tested. Perfect? No, but hell and I mean hell of alot better then RPM.
Upgrading isn't hell. All I have to do is "urpmi.update -a ; urpmi --update --auto-select", and I've upgraded software or the entire distro. Do not fault the "linux upgrading system" for the sheer stupidy Redhat used to employ. Also RPM is rather powerful, but once again thanks to the stupidity of redhat, RPM has been marred for life. No matter how cool other people (mandrake, yellow dog, etc) do with it there are lots of ignorant people who will hate it automatically, even if they haven't tried the newer set of tools.
the profile system under Unix is meant for a centralized mainframe/server and dumb terminals for each user. All the apps are on 1 system so all you need under
You give no clear reason why you desire this massive un-UNIX like change. Also thanks to nss_ldap, much of the above can be done in one manner or another. (however, nss_ldap requires running nscd unless you want massive lagage, but that in turn causes sync'ing issues. One day all fo this will be fix0red. Only linux and Solaris support nsswitch(), none of the BSD's support it in a correct manner, therefore this is not possible with them.)
Why the hell do
Because the binaries are linked that way. (read my other comments to see how all this works out.)
I can run an ancient Windows95 or Windows3.11 app without a problem under Windows2000.
Thats because retarded Windows applications like to over-write critical libraries with their own versions. Hence why Windows has a "roll-back" feature, and why LongHorn's WinFS allows for invisible versions of the same file. Its to allow for sheer windows programming stupidity.
Why can't they just keep older libraries and make a seperate newer one?
No one ever said you can't install old libs, I do it all the time to play old dynamically linked binary only games on my linux machine.
If the developer wants to link to the new one they can but the old one should be linked at compile and execution automatically.
Thats gotta be the biggest "dum-ass" idea ever (and yes, I spelt dum instead of dumb.). Different libs have different features, calls, etc. Go read a CS book to see why the MSFT people are smoking real crack. (go read ESR's "art of unix programming" to see why they're on more than just crack)
Sunny Dubey
More and more, I get the feeling that Red Hat has jumped the shark.
Novell is moving aggressively into the corporate market, while reveling in the power of viral marketing by "doing the right thing" by the Open Source community. It's agressively pursuing big deals, like the recent one to put SuSe on IBM's boxes. Knoppix and Mandrake have the n00b market all but cornered, and Debian and Gentoo are the must-haves for the Power Users.
Fedora is the odd distro out: not as approachable as Mandrake, not as stable as Debian, not as bleeding edge as Gentoo, and without the corporate cred of Novell. Red Hat, in spinning off Fedora, has really alienated a lot of potential customers, most of which buy on the say-so of seasoned geeks. Geeks are no longer saying Red Hat.
Oddly enough, Slackware is seeing something of a renaissance... stable and secure and with support contracts available is very attractive to a lot of traditional Unix shops who don't need flash and flair.
SoupIsGood Food
No, you pay for five copies if you want to run five copies. Even if you don't want support on any of them. If you don't pay for five, and redhat finds out, they'll bill you for the five plus penalties.
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How can we accept Red Hat's per-seat pricing and overbearing EULAs that allow them to audit user sites for license compliance? Why does Red Hat get a free pass from the community and from the FSF for constricting our freedom as badly as Microsoft ever has?
While I haven't paid as much attention to the whole thing as some people probably have, I've seen nothing of a "free pass" for Redhat. Ever since they announced the changes to their licensing/business people have been royally pissed and not shy about expressing that sentiment. Take me for example, like I said I've not paid too much attention to it (mostly because I was out of work in the IT field at the time), but now that I'm looking at Linux again, I'm not even considering Redhat. Whatever I use, it won't be Redhat. Currently I'm looking at Gentoo, and from my brief experience (I got started on an install Friday before I left work), I'm already pleased with it, more so than any previous version of Redhat. Take that as you wish, as for myself I think perhaps I'd outgrown the constrictions of a more general distro.The community's not just sitting around twiddling its collective thumbs about Redhat's actions. People are actively moving away from Redhat, no longer recommending it, and spreading the word about what they think of them. Personally I think Redhat may have destroyed themselves. As Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star infamously said (slightly modified) "[They're] already dead, [they] just don't know it yet."
'Szulik says he'd love it if Red Hat could become the next Microsoft. "Who wouldn't want to be Microsoft?" he asks. "I mean, come on. Honestly."'
-I wouldn't. The Linux OS is about stability and integrity. Dictionary.com defines Integrity : 'Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.'
-The companies that represent what linux is should reflect this in their business practices as well as their products.
'"This is not a religion," Carey says. "I want the most value for the dollars I spend." '
-It is not a religion. But, we do have loyalty, followers, proclaimers and believers of this technology.
-Do not overthrow microsoft and replace it with a wondersoft or megasoft. Replace it with something good.
Something good.
-Replace it with something we can respect and admire; with something that reflects the target-audience's beliefs.
It is smart to get the most value for your money.
It is not smart to support a dictatorship regime.
-We will not be enslaved as history has previously demonstrated. But we can still be enslaved through the rules of business and money in newer more creative forms.
To ponder: If someday we create AI, and it becomes self aware, and it asks us what it is.. We may not be able to say that it came from something perfect, but wouldn't it be nice if we could at least say it came from something good?
Fedora is still RedHat in essence, so there's no point complaining about how evil RedHat is for long - you can just nestle happily into Fedora.
The problem comes, however, in a commercial environment - those which need the support and for whom this will introduce a huge increase in costing. In this case, it's probably better to go for a less commercial distro, who's less likely to suddenly introduce new costs.
Hopefully we won't end up with the entirety of Linux being swallowed up by the corporate machine.
im in ur