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Red Hat Recap

Posted by michael on from the hat-trick dept.

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.

102 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Red Hat's Going on by sircle_72 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everything you wanted to know about red hat but were afraid to ask... six months ago.

    --
    Sure Bill Gates' hair is fugly, but give his barber some credit! At least he managed to cover the horns on his forehead.
    1. Re:Red Hat's Going on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      He also got it wrong. The new model is that Fedora is the bleeding edge software, and can be released that way for the eager hackers to play with. We get freely published software with no tech support from RedHat except doing the bug fixes, they get thousands of beta testers.

      They then charge the licensing fees for the commercial releases, *which contain licensed tools which RedHat could not publish as freeware* due to some of the odder and non-GPL compatible licenses. (Take a look at QT and the recent XFree86 copyright issues for examples.)

      You could install it entirely free before from downloaded ISO's or RPM's, and you can still do this with Fedora. What you can't do is buy one copy, install it on 500 machines, and expect RedHat to support all 500: that was slaughtering their Linux tech support.

    2. Re:Red Hat's Going on by tannhaus · · Score: 2, Informative

      QT is released under the GPL

    3. Re:Red Hat's Going on by noselasd · · Score: 2, Informative

      On the other hand, Red Hat makes a damn fine stable product. Well tested
      and with lots of enterprise features.
      You can pay for it and get support,(and not to mention "support" redhat).
      Or you can get it for free - www.whiteboxlinux.org

    4. Re:Red Hat's Going on by ePhil_One · · Score: 2, Informative
      What you can't do is buy one copy, install it on 500 machines, and expect RedHat to support all 500: that was slaughtering their Linux tech support.

      Folks with 500 systems don't bother RH's tech support, except possibly with kickstart issues to automate their rollouts. I've gone and bought copies so I could call and ask questions (well, once, I learned my lesson after that). They help with basic install issues only. Redhat's Bugzilla system is a far more useful means of getting support, but at that level I'm more assisting with bugfixes than asking for support.

      Now, they claim to help with setup of services under RHEL, I haven't tried. But the big service they offer is "Up2date", which lets you easily manage and update packages on all you systems. Its cool, but $700/year value it is not.

      Not that I'm Anti-Redhat. They have helped stabilize and legitimaize all sorts of packages, the Redhat Package Manager (RPM) works great, even if I need something custom compiled I'll tend to rebuild an RPM rather than manually compile and install. By providing vendors a widespread and tested distribution, they allowed vendors to build apps and drivers that didn't involve publishing a bunch of source code and giving away trade secrets (no matter how lame).

      --
      You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
  2. What, no editorial? by Nugget · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm disappointed in michael. I would have expected more invective. When I pointed this out last June he took the opportunity to taint the article with inflammatory and inaccurate editorial making it sound like I didn't know what I was talking about. Now I guess I've been vindicated by Forbes and the article gets no such coloring from the slashdot editors.

    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?

    Rick Carey speaks the truth. Red Hat is no more a "Free" choice than Microsoft is.

    1. Re:What, no editorial? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      All the software in all verions of Red Hat is free. They don't need a 'free pass' from the community, the FSF or anyone else because they are fully complying with the licensing terms of all the software they distribute. Come back when there's something to whine about.

    2. Re:What, no editorial? by tftp · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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?

      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.

    3. Re:What, no editorial? by goon+america · · Score: 5, Informative
      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?

      'Cause the EULA is only to impress PHBs. Anyone who knows their salt doesn't have to abide by that EULA in any meaningful way.

    4. Re:What, no editorial? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They don't place any restrictions on your right to redistribute GPL software. They don't place any restrictions on your right to receive source for the GPL software they provide to you. The only thing they place restrictions on is the terms on which they will proivide you with support services. That's it.

      Now, tell me how they do violate the GPL.

    5. Re:What, no editorial? by eviltypeguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?

    6. Re:What, no editorial? by changelingyahoo.com · · Score: 5, Informative

      I spoke with RedHat several months ago about this issue and here's the deal. You are free to place RHEL on as many machines as you'd like without even violating your license. You can distribute RHEL to others; there are no restrictions on distributing RHEL itself. You are allowed to use up2date and RHN to update only the machines you have a valid license for. You are not allowed to download updates from RHN and then apply them to machines that do not have a valid license. You may, however, download the RHEL SRPMs which are freely available on RedHat's site and update your software manually that way. If you believe any of this is incorrect then contact RedHat and they'll clarify it for you.

      --
      My Company
    7. Re:What, no editorial? by Nugget · · Score: 2, Informative
      The bitter truth, though is that the title of the second document makes it appear to be the services agreement, but it is in fact nothing more than an addendum to the EULA. From that document:

      "BY USING OR PURCHASING RED HAT LINUX ADVANCED SERVER OR SERVICES, CUSTOMER SIGNIFIES ITS ASSENT TO THIS AGREEMENT." (emphasis added)

      The second document is not, by any reading, just a service agreement. In it, the user of RHAL software agrees to be subject to audit and monetary penalties for violation of the agreement even in the absence of a services contract.

      If you use RHEL, you've agreed to both documents.

    8. Re:What, no editorial? by adamfranco · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just read the EULA and it specifically says,

      Red Hat Linux itself is a collective work under U.S. Copyright Law. Red Hat grants you a license in this collective work pursuant to the GNU General Public License.

      Nothing in the EULA says anything about not being able to copy the software.

      Now, from browsing around their site I gather that what RedHat is charging for (and restricting on a per-machine basis, is a connection-to/right-to-use their update service. I wasn't able to see anything that said that you couldn't take one ISO of Advanced Server and put it on two machines. However, you would need to pay twice to be able to update both of them via RedHat's update system.

      If you want to install RedHat AS and then compile all updates your self, it seems that you would be welcome to, but why then use RedHat?

      This kinda actually makes sense as a business plan. If you have mission-critical servers, but not the expertise to admin them under Debian, *BSD, Gentoo, etc, buy a RedHat license and have it "just work"(TM).

      --
      "When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
    9. Re:What, no editorial? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Okay, I see your point. (License here btw, it would help your arguments if you'd link to the supporting documents)

      It still doesn't strictly break the GPL since it's referring to a combined product that's an aggregation of GPL'd software, other free software, and proprietary Red Hat images that they are allowed to restrict. BUT I'd agree that I have great reservations about the approach they're using, it's rather reminiscent of what SuSE previously did with YAST which Novell has now stopped. Also, the claim that a license leaps into force when someone uses a product is dubious at best.

    10. Re:What, no editorial? by Nugget · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Bear in mind that any user of REHEL (with or without a service agreement) is also bound to this agreement which serves as an extension to the standard EULA.

      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 Red Hat Linux Advanced Server and Services Agreement (the "Agreement" is between Red Hat, Inc. ("Red Hat") and any purchaser or user ("Customer") of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server or Services (as defined below).
      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:
      BY USING OR PURCHASING RED HAT LINUX ADVANCED SERVER OR SERVICES, CUSTOMER SIGNIFIES ITS ASSENT TO THIS AGREEMENT.
      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:
      If Customer is found to have underreported the number of Installed Server by more than five percent (5%), Customer shall, in addition to the annual fee for Service per Installed Server, pay a penalty equal to twenty percent (20%) of the underreported fees.
      and
      If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server.
    11. Re:What, no editorial? by Paul+Jakma · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you would take your own advice and actually read RedHat's "EULA", which is actually not a EULA, but a subscription agreement, you might notice that Appendix 1, section 1 specifically notifies the agreeing party of their right to copy and redistribute the component software under the individual licences of much of the component software in RHEL, further RedHat is quite specific that the agreement does not restrict or limit the customer's rights in any way with respect to those rights granted by the licences of the individual component software which makes up RHEL. Indeed the preamble of Appendix actually grants the agreeing party a licence under the GPL to the collective work.

      RedHat are not violating the GPL. You are allowed to copy RHEL, sans the small number of packages containing RedHat Trademarks. And RH even make this easy by seperating the Trademarked art work into seperate packages from the actual GPL'd packages which use those Trademarked images. Indeed the frupping RHEL subscription agreement even goes into detail on this in section 2 of Appendix 1. And you cant call the resulting distro RHEL or even allude to it being RHEL.

      There are 0 additional restrictions placed on the RHEL user in terms of what they may do with the software components. The only thing you are not allowed to do as a RHEL subscriber is lie to RedHat about how many copies of RHEL you have installed, which relates to the support & subscription side of RHEL or copy their proprietary RHN server software (which isnt (AFAIK) part of RHEL), which is fair enough.

      Whether you use RedHat or not, and you dont have to, there are plenty of linux distro's out there to choose from, you still benefit from the resources RedHat puts into bettering linux by paying people to work on it. Indeed, you can even download a free and unsupported version of a Linux distro into which RedHat invest a lot of engineering resources if you want to. Even if you dont though, you will still be benefiting from the work RedHat employees are paid to do on free Linux software. (as well as those IBM, HP, Sun, SuSe, Mandrakesoft, $whatever_corporation, etc.. etc.. employees who also are paid to work on Linux and linux related free software). If a subscription fee means RedHat can continue to work on contributing to Linux, then that is good, because we will _all_ benefit, regardless of which distro we use.

      I wish the clueless "leet" kiddies would grow up, get a clue and stop the inane ill-informed RedHat-bashing, but I guess there's little hope when even long long standing members of the community (such as yourself, thanks for the bovine project ;) ) are on the bandwagon too.

      --
      I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
    12. Re:What, no editorial? by IWannaBeAnAC · · Score: 3, Informative
      You are not allowed to download updates from RHN and then apply them to machines that do not have a valid license. You may, however, download the RHEL SRPMs which are freely available on RedHat's site and update your software manually that way.

      An update to a GPL program that you download via RHN is surely a derived work of the program; as such the GPL applies and Red Hat have no ability to stop you from redistributing the update.

    13. Re:What, no editorial? by Paul+Jakma · · Score: 3, Informative

      That agreement is essentially much the same as the RHEL agreement but less developed, RHAS is obsolete now, replaced by RHEL AS. Anyway the text quoted prohibits you from lying about how many copies of RHAS you have installed while you are covered by the subscription agreement. Which is quite reasonable for a support & update subscription service.

      It does not prohibit copying. My personal opinion is that if you removed RedHat trade marked packages, in accordance with appendix 1 sections 1 and 2 of the RHEL licence, replaced them with your own image packages and called it "My Personal Advanced Linux" you could then install that on other machines without breaching the RHEL subscription agreement. But ask a solicitor first.

      Even if you could not, you definitely would be able to give copies of "MPAL" to other parties, as well as individual update packages received via RHEL update channels from RH. (but dont take my word, ask a solicitor).

      --
      I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
    14. Re:What, no editorial? by changelingyahoo.com · · Score: 2

      You are absolutely correct. The updates I was referring to that you are *not* permitted to download are the binary package updates available from RHN which they are permitted to restrict (though they do make the source RPMs available for free as required by the GPL). I should have been more clear. Thanks for picking that up.

      --
      My Company
    15. Re:What, no editorial? by lspd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Read the EULA. It's all there.

      You link to the wrong license agreement. RedHat uses the nice license for the software, and the nasty license for the support contract. Of course, RedHat will only sell you the software with a support contract, so the support contract terms apply to anyone wanting to purchase RHEL.

      The support contract plainly states: "If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement."

      The end result, of course, is that you can't buy RHAS without giving up rights the GPL explicitly gives you.

    16. Re:What, no editorial? by listen · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, the updates that you were referring to are *still* derivative works of a GPL'ed work. Thus, Redhat cannot provide them to you with additional restrictions. Once you have downloaded the RPMS, you can do what you like with them.

      What Redhat can and do restrict is the access to their download servers. They are not required to let you use their bandwidth.... and that is what you are paying for, along with support.

    17. Re:What, no editorial? by niew · · Score: 3, Informative
      I spoke with RedHat several months ago about this issue and here's the deal. You are free to place RHEL on as many machines as you'd like without even violating your l license.

      I don't think that this is correct... I hope you got it in writing from your RH contact ;)

      From the RHEL FAQ on the RH site, Questions #5 and #6:

      Q [#5]: How are the Red Hat Enterprise Linux products delivered, in terms of services and prices?

      A: The basic delivery model for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 is unchanged from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux products are sold on an annual subscription basis. As mentioned above, under the terms of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux usage agreement, a subscription is required for every system on which Red Hat Enterprise Linux is installed.[...] (emphasis mine)

      Q [#6]:You mentioned licensing - what does this mean? I thought Linux was free.

      A: Except for a few components provided by third parties (for example, Java) all the code in Red Hat products is open source and licensed under the GPL (or a similar license, such as the LGPL). So you always have free access to the source code. In fact you can download it from our FTP servers at any time.[...]

    18. Re:What, no editorial? by black+mariah · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh... no.

      What that paragraph states is that you CAN put the software on as many computers as you want, but if you do you're not getting any tech support from Redhat. This is the support contract, not the software contract.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    19. Re:What, no editorial? by Maestro4k · · Score: 2, Interesting
      • 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."

    20. Re:What, no editorial? by saden1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly...no one is forcing anyone to choose Red Hat. Like every company Red Hat responds to customer demands. If customers start going somewhere else for the their Linux solutions you'd better believe they'd change their license policy.

      --

      -----
      One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
    21. Re:What, no editorial? by N3WBI3 · · Score: 2

      I think it refers to using the rhn service to track your system and update it. Redhat does have a right to do that. The statement makes no claim on restricting your ability to distribute the SRPM's they provide..

      --
    22. Re:What, no editorial? by It'sYerMam · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The difference of course being that there're still many different distros for you to choose from, so you're not trapped into a monopoly's software.

      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 .sig, writin ur memes.
  3. Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    There was a danger this Forbes troll by Daniel Lyons wouldn't get all the hits it was trolling for so Slashdot decided to help out.

  4. At a loss.... by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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*

    1. Re:At a loss.... by lofoforabr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > 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 That's what leads most people to stick to what they are currently using: lazyness. If people were just looking forward to at least experimenting new things, I suppose neither MS nor RH would be acting the way they are. Well, in theory they could, but the userbase would surely get smaller. > but i 'spose i'll have to. Sorry for snipping the end of your phrase. I wish people would think like you in this respect. I see so many people complaining about either Windows bugs or RH licenses that I just cant understand. If they don't like it, why stick with it? I guess everyone deserve whatever software they use, don't we?

    2. Re:At a loss.... by ameoba · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you want something Free that NEVER gets changed, why not look into Debian Stable?

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    3. Re:At a loss.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Easy answer!

      http://www.taolinux.org
      http://www.whiteboxlinu x.org

      Both are rebuilt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 distros, free to the community, and supported with updates. And even if those projects stop doing updates, you can just download the SRPM updates from RH's site and rebuild them!

      Best of all, RHEL is supported for FIVE years. Stable, polished and long-lifed, community RHEL variants are the way to go!

    4. Re:At a loss.... by Alan+Cox · · Score: 4, Informative

      If Red Hat support isnt worth $179 then don't buy RHEL, its as simple as that. You can grab Debian, Gentoo, RHEL clones like Whtiebox, or use Fedora.

      Thats why the MS comment is so off, you have lots of choices. In fact I believe Progeny were also talking about RH9 extended support, and there is a Fedora legacy project. Probably the support quality of the volunteer projects won't be as good as RHEL or SuSE enterprise products, but there is a reason for that you can copy code for free, but support and errata testing cost real money.

      As to updates. FC1 will update RH9 smoothly.

      Alan

    5. Re:At a loss.... by Linker3000 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I was discussing this elsewhere recently as I have a single system running RH9 in a small business and it's mainly used for a file and print server and Intranet server.

      Putting aside the issue of paying for a RHEL licence, which is not horrendous (but a little OTT considering what it costs now!), condensing the advice I was given from various sources, it seemed to boil down to this for us:

      • Fedora's 'bleeding edge' might introduce unwanted hassle for us, so stay away
      • Fedora Legacy project will provide support updates to RH9 so could we redirect yum to the right location and live with RH9 for the forseeable future
      • We could migrate to Whitebox Linux to effectively get RHEL 3
      I'm not a Linux newbie but I'm no way a guru either, so how does that sound to you - I'm especially wondering if Whitebox is the way to go for simplicity, but am also cautious about support levels and bug fixes - our needs are simple, but I don't want the server stuffed by a wierd quirk...and stuff on the Whitebox site about 'x' not working because 'I forgot...' is a tad unnerving!

      If we part company with RH, what's the likely hassle factor of going to, say, FeeeBSD or [insert your favourite distro here]?

      Ta!
      --
      AT&ROFLMAO
    6. Re:At a loss.... by niew · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'm not sure why I was moderated down here... From the RHEL FAQ Questions #5 and #6
      5) (...)As mentioned above, under the terms of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux usage agreement, a subscription is required for every system on which Red Hat Enterprise Linux is installed.(...)

      6) Except for a few components provided by third parties (for example, Java) all the code in Red Hat products is open source and licensed under the GPL (or a similar license, such as the LGPL). So you always have free access to the source code. In fact you can download it from our FTP servers at any time (...)

  5. Forbes is optimistic by Gwala · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Forbes is optimistic by the+gnat · · Score: 5, Informative

      Dan Lyons (the author of the linked column) is also the same guy who wrote a rambling, incoherent article describing Linux users as naive, idealistic hippies, constantly referring to them as "Linux crunchies." And the crack editing team at Forbes saw fit to publish it. How does a publication that purports to cover the business world manage to be so out of touch with it?

  6. Re:Imagine that, another inflammatory Forbes story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  7. Worried about Paying Anything! by Herkum01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Talk about a bunch of BS. RedHat wants to charge for support for the OS. Now Carey does not want to buy Linux but would rather go with Windows. So pay Microsoft for a license and then hire your staff for support to address the problems that Microsoft did not fix. Or use Linux and pay Redhat to support the OS and not pay any licenses, or not pay RedHat and hire your own staff. Either way you are not paying for a license to Redhat and you are paying for support for both products so it seems like Linux is still a winner.

  8. Can't recommend RHAT to customers these days... by morelife · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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".

    1. Re:Can't recommend RHAT to customers these days... by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Red Hat is now three separate moving targets: fedora
      rhel
      rh9

      Not really. RH9 is irrelevent next month and I think it's been made pretty obvious that Fedora is the unstable beta development branch that feeds into RHEL and you use it at your own risk with zero support. Red Hat's only product is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If you're a home user then they're pretty much telling you to go use some other distribution. Mandrake would be the most logical choice for former home Red Hat users, but they should give Debian a try as well.

      With all that in mind, our group decided to stick with Red Hat and purchased the 20 WS licenses and a couple ES licenses for our machines. I can't say I'm particularly impressed with RHEL so far. The lack of packages that used to even be in RH 9 is amazing. They don't even include xcdroast anymore so I'm kind of at a loss as to how I'm going to burn CDs until I can get it to compile from source (I'm having trouble with that for some reason). I also love how they leave out several packages like dhcp and openldap-servers from WS and expect you to buy the much much more expensive ES brand to get them. Not a big deal since you can still just download the server packages you need from the ES channel, although it probably won't auto-update through RHN. All-in-all, an incredibly lackluster product. If we didn't insist on "commercial support" I'd have just went with Debian.

  9. Cost of switching distributions? by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Cost of switching distributions? by 0racle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What they're complaining about is writing to specifics, and then for some reason expecting those specifics to be in every other distro.

      For instance, lets say I write something to run on Debian specifically. This app requires a init script as the system boots, so it is hard coded into the app to write the script to /etc/init.d and links in the /etc/rc#.d directories. I then go ahead say that this is written for "Linux" and distribute it. One of my clients runs Slackware, where the SysV style init scripts are in /etc/rc.d/init.d so my hard coded app that was written for "Linux" now only works on Debain because I wrote for a Debain specific setup.

      The reaction should be, write it in a more neutral way, not whine that I wrote for a specific feature that surprise, surprise, doesn't exist on another distro.

      What made me laugh about this is that its no different then any other OS, I write something for Windows its not going to work straight across on Solaris, or write for *BSD and it wont run on OS X.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    2. Re:Cost of switching distributions? by Coryoth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The differences between RH9 and SuSE 9 are significant, mostly in installation and maintenance area. The up2date is completely different, and you can run your own. Printers are done differently somewhat. Even /etc/rc.d tree is different. In a large company, such as with 100 boxes, this may be a problem - but not an insurmountable one.

      Thanks, that's the sort of summary I was looking for, and was pretty much my understanding. Yes, there are some significant differences, but nothing too challenging. Unless you have a huge number of admin scripts that use a lot of harcoded paths, mostly it would seem to be a matter of learning how the new distro does things, and setting everything up according to their style - and that isn't too big a leap if your familiar wnough with UNIX.

      I guess this just means: Don't write too many scripts that have hardcoded expectations of where to find things - and that's not especially difficult.

      The pain of migration from Win2k to WinXP... nobody in his right mind would do that. Win2k is the best OS that MS ever came up with.

      Sorry, I haven't used MS since Win2k first came out, so I was randomly guessing at versions :-)

      Jedidiah.

      --
      Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
    3. Re:Cost of switching distributions? by Stinking+Pig · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1) the speed of change is very rapid and all the distros don't make the same decisions about following that change. Glibc, the kernel, and gcc are the big ones, but everything introduces possible incompatibilities. I've spent some delightful time diagnosing NPTL changes that broke my last companies' app on RHEL3, but nothing else. It's arguable that the old behavior was broken and eventually all distributions would come along to the same change, but the immediate effect is "RHEL 3 breaks my app." That sort of thing could happen going from any distro to any distro, depending on the cleanliness of your code.

      2) Most inhouse code is not so clean. It's not uncommon for scripts to look for /etc/redhat-release, use hardcoded paths, and otherwise make bad decisions. This is particularly true when the code was one of the company's first few Unix projects; they're coming from Windows and they don't understand the environment.

      --
      "Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
  10. RedHat not for the SMB market by codepunk · · Score: 4, Informative

    We want to make sure that we do focus on the SMB (small/medium business) market.

    I have a Red Hat certification but I am unable to install it anywhere. I get install jobs because of the price and they priced themselves completely out of the SMB
    market.

    When I bid a job against the local MS junk pushers I under cut them typically by as much as one tenth the cost. Red Hat is way to costly in this cut throat environment to compete with small business server so I don't even consider it.

    --


    Got Code?
    1. Re:RedHat not for the SMB market by Albanach · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Red Hat is way to costly in this cut throat environment to compete with small business server so I don't even consider it.

      redhat Server costs $350 a year and can be compared to, say, Microsoft Small Busines Server which is a snip at $1,250. Yet MS shops are undercutting you?

    2. Re:RedHat not for the SMB market by sheldon · · Score: 2

      They changed the pricing model with SBS 2003.

      There is a Standard edition which just has Windows Server and Exchange. It's about $500.

      The Premium edition which includes SQL Server and ISA Server costs $1200.

      As the other person responded, Microsoft only charges you once for the software and then self-serve support and updates are free. That's not the position Redhat has taken, where security patches and other updates are only available now to people who pay the year subscription. So you are forced to pay for the software again each year.

  11. Other possibilities by negyvenot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since Red Hat is open source, you have at least the following choises: Cent OS, and Tao Linux. Both being clones of RHEL.

    1. Re:Other possibilities by IO+ERROR · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's also White Box. Someone explain to me why there are THREE separate RHEL clone projects? Shouldn't these merge? Since they're pretty much doing exactly the same thing?

      --
      How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    2. Re:Other possibilities by bmarklein · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are four - you forgot Lineox.

  12. Redhat is still around? by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The future of Linux lies with Suse/Novell and IBM.

    Novell has Ximian for its connectors (that means ZENworks for Linux is on the way), a solid distribution to integrate their tools with and run their services (like eDirectory) on, and GroupWise for productivity - which is already mature. In other words, Novell has the future of Linux on the corporate desktop locked, and is poised to make Linux easily managed in the low end server market with their already existing tools and directories.

    It is only a matter of time before IBM stops relying on Redhat as a partner, and instead chooses Novell/Suse or their own Linux distro.

    Redhat is pretty much over. I stopped caring about them after they released Fedora.

    1. Re:Redhat is still around? by JoeBuck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      SuSE and IBM would have nothing to sell if they had to take out Red Hat's contributions, and would not be able to effectively take over if all the maintainers of vital Linux and GNU components being paid by Red Hat were to disappear.

      I am often irritated by Red Hat, but I never make the mistake of thinking that we can do without them.

      Novell has nothing "locked", as their contributions are GPLed just like Red Hat's.

  13. $179? No problem. by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 4, Insightful
    i'm going to have to upgrade my machines, but am NOT going to pay $179 to do it

    I don't see any particular problem with paying for software I need and $179 really isn't that much. I'll end up paying it one way or the other to RH or Novell (SuSE). No, I have NO intention of moving to some boutique distro that requires a Linux Guru to manage.

    By the way, I don't quite understand why people that will pay $200 plus on an iPod, big cash in the latest game toy / case mod / whoop-dee-doo / sushi bar excess, why $179 for an OS is a proble.

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
    1. Re:$179? No problem. by Albanach · · Score: 4, Informative
      Yeah, and you aren't a student right now are you? $200 will be change later on in life for me, but not at this time. Consider other situations before running your mouth.

      Redhat and SuSE both offer discounts to students.

      Redhat

      SuSE

      Prices start at $25. Consider those facts before running your mouth.

    2. Re:$179? No problem. by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 2, Insightful


      By the way, I don't quite understand why people that will pay $200 plus on an iPod, big cash in the latest game toy / case mod / whoop-dee-doo / sushi bar excess, why $179 for an OS is a proble.

      I'm not aware of too many businesses that purchase iPods for all their employees. Or outfit their serverfarm with iPods.

      The point isn't a single $179 purchase. It is $179 times the number of systems (or processsors) invovled. It adds up - and quickly.

      But wait a sec - it's not just $179. It is $179 plus the cost of overhead for managing licenses. Plus the cost of project management overhead for aquiring licenses if, for some reason, a target dev box didn't come with RH Enterprise Linux and you have to expand your licenses (which may or may not present an obsticle in your environment - it does in mine even though our IT budget is in the millions... its all red tape).

      Not that this is an issue for everyone. I'm sure most enterprise-level environments can handle it (mine included if I plan for it properly). But this is certainly less trivial than comparing the license to an iPod implies.
    3. Re:$179? No problem. by Jerk+City+Troll · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't see any particular problem with paying for software I need and $179 really isn't that much.

      That is an outrageous price when talking about software that is both Free and free. I can see paying that much for support services, but not for the actual software itself. Given that you cannot download RedHat Enterprise for free, you aren't paying for support.

      No, I have NO intention of moving to some boutique distro that requires a Linux Guru to manage.

      All systems require some degree of competence and understanding to setup and administer correctly. If you aren't afraid of learning new skills and expanding your knowledge, I would highly recommend Debian as an alternative. It is really the easiest distro to maintain. In addition, it will always be free and never chock full of much of the annoying crap many distros like SuSE and Mandrake throw in (silly logos, hyperactive themes, silly tools that pretend to do something useful, etc).

      I don't quite understand why people that will pay $200 plus on an iPod, big cash in the latest game toy / case mod / whoop-dee-doo / sushi bar excess, why $179 for an OS is a proble.

      Probably has something to do with the fact that when you're buying software, you're actually just buying a piece of plastic and aluminum with a certain configuration of bumps on it. And even then, you really don't own anything, you're really just renting or borrowing. You cannot even sell it.

      If you buy and iPod, you actually own it. It is yours. You can take it apart, you can smash it, and it has value with you can recoup.

      It's really not all that subtle of a distinction.

      --
      Join Tor today!
    4. Re:$179? No problem. by God!+Awful+2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're a student? How much is your tuition? And how did you afford to buy a computer in the first place?

      -a

      --
      /. users can't
    5. Re:$179? No problem. by Haeleth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because almost everything Redhat packages is free. There is no reason I should pay $179 USD for a product that should essentially be without cost.

      If the $179 isn't paying for anything, then use Fedora; if Fedora isn't good enough, then the $179 must be paying for something worth having. You can't have it both ways.

    6. Re:$179? No problem. by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Funny

      FreeBSD offers deep discounts to students as well. Last I checked (five minutes ago) it was zero dollars and zero cents. Commercial users will, unfortunately, have to pay twice as much.

      (shrink wrap and box are sold separately)

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  14. To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just a quick post: those of you bashing Red Hat for various reasons, consider this:

    1) They release all their config tools under the GPL
    2) They contribute to the kernel, GCC, glibc, XFree86, GNOME, OpenOffice.org and other projects
    3) They're standing up and fighting SCO

    Hey, I'm not too happy about the whole RH-to-Fedora business, but Red Hat as a company deserves huge respect. Without its help and funding, Linux would not be progressing so fast.

    Go back to the days of GCC 2.7.x, XFree86 3.3 etc. to see what I mean...

    1. Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by BubbleNOP · · Score: 2, Informative

      They also provide Cygwin. What does "ability to distribute customer's applications without being bound by the GPL" mean? Is this gem the reason they were surprised by Richard Stallman's words?

    2. Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by Tet · · Score: 4, Informative
      What does "ability to distribute customer's applications without being bound by the GPL" mean? Is this gem the reason they were surprised by Richard Stallman's words?

      It simply means that you can compile things with the Cygwin gcc on Windows and the resulting binary isn't covered by the GPL. This wasn't true with earlier versions, which were linked against a GPL Cygwin DLL, and hence compiled programs were required to be GPL if they were to be distributed. This just brings it in line with the GNU development toolchain on other platforms. There's nothing sinister going on here. These aren't the droids you're looking for. You may go about your business. Move along...

      --
      "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    3. Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by reidbold · · Score: 2, Insightful
      1) They release all their config tools under the GPL

      GPL is far from a magic wand. (It won't make your code automagically perfect. You have to have programmers that can do that before that'll happen)

      He wasn't implying that, he simply said that red hat contributes. They don't just take the 200 buck licenses lauging to the bank, they pay people to make stuff available for everyone.

      2) They contribute to the kernel, GCC, glibc, XFree86, GNOME, OpenOffice.org and other projects

      Remember gcc 2.96?

      Uh what? That's a nice red herring. Again, red hat contributes back, the misbranded gcc is irrelevant here.

      3) They're standing up and fighting SCO

      I would too if my business was completely bassed on selling Linux.
      Or they could have avoided fighting and taken the easy way out by settling.

      --
      -Reid
    4. Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by endx7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He wasn't implying that, he simply said that red hat contributes. They don't just take the 200 buck licenses lauging to the bank, they pay people to make stuff available for everyone.

      He may not have been trying to imply that, but it sounded like he might have been.

      Remember gcc 2.96?

      Uh what? That's a nice red herring. Again, red hat contributes back, the misbranded gcc is irrelevant here.

      Ok, so the gnu link wasn't that informative. However, gcc 2.96 (before it was fixed) was -very- broken, and not an actual official gcc release, but instead the development version gcc + some patches redhat commited. Mplayer in particular had a lot of problems with it. Fortunately (as far as I know), Redhat didn't do anything else quite that bad, or I'd -really- rather not have Redhat's contributions.

    5. Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish by nathanh · · Score: 3, Informative
      Just a quick post: those of you bashing Red Hat for various reasons, consider this:

      1) They release all their config tools under the GPL
      2) They contribute to the kernel, GCC, glibc, XFree86, GNOME, OpenOffice.org and other projects
      3) They're standing up and fighting SCO

      Hey, I'm not too happy about the whole RH-to-Fedora business, but Red Hat as a company deserves huge respect. Without its help and funding, Linux would not be progressing so fast.

      This is slightly off-topic, and while I agree with you that RedHat is most definitely a friend of Linux (and always has been), there are always going to be some people who see conspiracies everywhere. Your 3 facts show RedHat to be one of the good guys but the facts will be ignored by some people. They want RedHat to be evil. They will misinterpret the facts to support their warped view.

      Another recent example is Sun. Here are just some of the things that Sun has done for Linux.

      • Donates money and support to OSDL, which employs Linus Torvalds.
      • Donates money and employs full-time paid developers to work on GNOME.
      • Spent $75 million to buy StarOffice, which they subsequently open-sourced as OpenOffice. Further donates money and employs full-time paid developers to work on OpenOffice.

      Yet we're already seeing the "Sun is evil" comments regarding the recent settlement between Sun and Microsoft. I've even seen one normally respectable site accuse Sun of entering into a conspiracy with SCO and Microsoft as early as March of last year, and this $2 billion settlement is part of the "pay off" for Sun's cooperation in destroying Linux. I can't even imagine the kind of confusion that would make somebody think like that.

      My point is that people believe what they want to believe. You and I both know that RedHat is a bloody good thing for Linux, and so is Sun, but people who want to believe that RedHat and Sun are evil will continue to believe that, and no amount of facts will change their beliefs.

  15. I say bullshit.. by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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
  16. No Complaints here... by jaylee7877 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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....

  17. Is $6.95 Too Expensive For Anyone? by ortcutt · · Score: 2, Informative
    I don't understand what the complaint is:

    Enterprise Linux AS 3.0 ISO's

    You don't get support, but you aren't paying for it.

  18. Linux and Redhat confusion by blutrot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Many PHBs think that Redhat and Linux are the same thing. They do not know that Redhat is a distribution of linux and that other distributions such as debian, slackware, and SuSE exist. Ask several PHBs what version of linux is ran in their offices and they will say Linux 9.

    Forbes:
    "Most open source is imitation," Carey says. "Linux is an imitation of an operating system. If these [Linux] companies are going to create a price point that is significant enough that they are approaching the same pricing model as the innovation premium, why pay a premium for imitation when I can pay a premium and get innovation?"

    This comment is a prime example of such a case. They see the cost of Linux going up when the cost of Linux never went up in the first place. They fail to see that they are paying for the support that Redhat provides, not for linux itself. In order to push linux in the business world, it is important that PHBs understand that linux does not come from a single company. They must understand how the liscencing works, and that they can always just hire a few admins to update their boxes -- not just rely on Redhat to do it for them.

  19. Re:Imagine that, another inflammatory Forbes story by gilesjuk · · Score: 2

    I like the sentence about Linux an being imitation (of Windows) and that he'd rather pay for Windows and get innovation. What is he smoking?

    Linux had a kernel HTTP acceleration before Windows did (Windows 2003 adds kernel IIS acceleration). Apache doesn't imitate IIS, Perl doesn't imitate VB etc..etc..

  20. thank god for FreeBSD by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just do a cvsup to the latest ports tree. and portupgrade all your ports.

    Or if its a server do a cd /stand, ./sysinstall, and from there select configure and you can upgrade to a newer distro over the internet!

    If you absolutely need Linux, then look at Debian stable. Very well tested and also free.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:thank god for FreeBSD by phoxix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ah, you sound young to the word of *nix, heh

      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 /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.

      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 .so's or newer versions of glibc are incompatible with the old versions?

      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

  21. Per-Seat pricing is fine. by The+Monster · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How can we accept Red Hat's per-seat pricing and overbearing EULAs that allow them to audit user sites for license compliance?
    The article itself says why, although it mocks the reasoning.
    But Red Hat claims Enterprise Linux is still free--because customers are being charged for support, not for the software itself (ahem).
    For years, we FOSS advocates have said
    You can give away the software and make your money on the support.
    RH is doing exactly that. Anyone who wants a copy of the software can have it, free as in beer and speech. They can hire anyone they want for support, whether in-house or outsourced, under mutually agreed terms. What they can't do is make a deal for RH to support a 20-user shop, and then pile on 30 more users for free. Letting your customers take advantage of you is not the way to make money.

    Maybe my perspective is different on this because I make my living in the Support department of a company that sells support contracts that ultimately pay for me. I tend to be frustrated by our Sales and Implementation departments driving things under The Manufacturing Delusion, more interested in 'making the sale' than creating an environment that offers our customers an ongoing service. Lately I've seen signs to suggest we might be turning that around, though.

    --

    [100% ISO 646 Compliant]
    SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.

    1. Re:Per-Seat pricing is fine. by Wumpus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, you can. You'll have to compile your own copy, though.

      White Box Enterprise Linux is doing just that.

  22. They spelled my name right... by Thagg · · Score: 5, Informative

    but they didn't put it in bold :) Oh well.

    Once the article came out, I called Red Hat to make sure I hadn't misinterpreted what they were doing -- and to attempt to clarify how they were restricting distribution of what was apparently GPL'd software.

    The person I spoke to make a clear distinction between the binary distribution and the source code. The source code is available for free download, and will continue to be available for free download forever. On the other hand, they do restrict you from installing the binary distribution onto multiple machines. They say that the act of compiling the programs, and assembling them into a distribution, is work that they demand to be compensated for.

    I was under the mistaken impression that the price of the distribution was to compensate for the maintainance, and that they really wouldn't mind of you installed from the CD onto multiple machines. That is incorrect, they "consider that a violation of their license."

    There are obviously loopholes that you could drive a truck through, if you were so inclined. I asked, and there is apparently no restriction on reverse engineering of the distribution, so you could buy one copy, download the corresponding source code, and make an exact copy of each of the programs in the distribution, and put those files on all of your machines. You could also monitor what their up2date system is doing on one machine, download the source code changes and compile and install those on each machine. This would be a significant pain in the neck, of course.

    It's interesting that Red Hat has not done some things that would prevent one from doing this. In particular, they do not include software that Red Hat has written, but is not GPL'd. If they had done that, then there would be no way to legally create an identical distribution from source code.

    We've got about 100 systems running RH 8 and 9. Some 40 of those are dual Opteron boxes, for which Red Hat Enterprise Edition is about $800/box, so it would not be an insignificant expense to sign up for the system.

    Thad Beier

    --
    I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
    1. Re:They spelled my name right... by changelingyahoo.com · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is interesting because the RedHat rep I conversed with said (and I quote): "As long as you don't violate the terms of our agreement by seeking support or RHN service for machines not covered under the subscription, you're safe to install RHEL3 on as many machines as you choose." I think RedHat needs to get their story straight.

      --
      My Company
    2. Re:They spelled my name right... by salimma · · Score: 3, Informative
      I asked, and there is apparently no restriction on reverse engineering of the distribution, so you could buy one copy, download the corresponding source code, and make an exact copy of each of the programs in the distribution, and put those files on all of your machines.

      You can. It's called White Box Linux. Won't give you the peace of mind of running RHEL though.
      --
      Michel
      Fedora Project Contribut
  23. Two simple targets by Alan+Cox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fedora - this is what RH was before it got tangled up in retail and other things that slowed it down. Its regular releases, new toys and akin to RH5, RH6, RH7, etc

    RHEL - business oriented product with Red Hat support and with certifications and testing guarantees for things like Oracle. In order to b e supportable it handles less hardware, contains less packages and picks more conserative ones, as well as having a long lifetime.

    I've not found many businesses have problems untangling this. but some of the non business folks got a little baffled or still don't realise that
    a) FC1 updates RH9 fine
    b) FC is exactly what old RHL (7.x etc) was about.

    1. Re:Two simple targets by prockcore · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  24. Loss leaders by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think Red Hat has seriously underestimated the importance of their loss leader (the series of low-end boxed sets ending with RH9). Fedora is a step in the right direction, but it has a beta-quality feel to it that turned this long-time Red Hat user off to it.

    I'm in the market for another distro right now -- something that would not have happened if there were such a thing as RHL 10. So what's it going to be? SuSE? White Box Linux? Something else? Hopefully I'll have that answer in a couple of months. It's not going to be Fedora, and I've got too many customers that aren't willing to pay the premium for RHEL.

    They've shot themselves in the foot. RHL was an important loss leader that established the brand. People were familiar with RHL, so they were eager to buy RHEL. Without the low end product, where do you build your market from? People who are just getting started with Linux now, might just install SuSE since there's no RHL. And when they're ready to step up, those big bucks are going to go to Novell, not Red Hat.

    It's a shame that success has blinded Red Hat to the realities of the marketplace. They are ready to pretend to be Microsoft, but reality says that RH ain't Microsoft. The users aren't locked in and they will move if they feel they're being screwed with.

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    1. Re:Loss leaders by Obyron · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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
  25. Succotash by DgWatters0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Heh, I never realised that succotash was a real word, having only ever heard it in the context of a certain cartoon. OK, you can mod me down now.

  26. RHEL is not MS-esque by El+Volio · · Score: 2
    My understanding of RHEL is that it can be installed on as many systems as you like after all, it's (almost) all GPL software. (That might not apply to any non-GPL bits.) But you're purchasing per-CPU support. If you've got servers that you don't need so much support for, at least from the vendor, then do what you like.

    That said, I wish Red Hat would bring out their mid-level offering between Fedora and RHEL and quit the coy smiles. It's giving me fits for planning our deployments this year, since Fedora works great for some things and not others, but I really need a middle tier (lower than RHEL WS).

    Now, when Red Hat starts exclusionary license agreements, killing competing products with vaporware announcements, and changing APIs without telling anybody, then they'd be "Microsoft-esque". But being that they're distributing Free Software, that would be really hard to do. This is more FUD from Forbes, a magazine noted in the past for its difficulty understanding Free Software.

    --

    "You can never have too many elephants on your team."

    1. Re:RHEL is not MS-esque by Bull999999 · · Score: 3, Informative

      So this means that you are not really paying for the software, rather, you are paying for the work of putting it together, support, and updates. I don't see a problem with that as Red Hat is a for-profit corporation afterall. I doubt that there are many slashdotters who are willing to give up their day job, create their own linux distro, and support and update them full time without asking for money.

      --
      1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
  27. Antitrust violation by mslinux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.

  28. SCO Fallout by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Notice in the 'interview' his *first* reason for holding off on OSS is due to the SCO lawsuits..

    Regardless of who is right, its going to take us years go get over this bad PR-image they have rather successfully created.....

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  29. GNOME 2.6 is already in Debian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Fedora. The contiuation of Redhat post 9. Core 2 will be out soon with Gnome 2.6!

    Debian. For those who want hard to use out of date software even in the unstable version!"

    GNOME 2.6 is already in the official Debian experimental. Just add it to your /etc/apt/sources.list. It works fine. Install it and go.

    It would have gone into unstable, but Debian is currently trying to stabalize sarge and doesn't want GNOME 2.6 transfering into sarge when it is about to be released.

    It's being in experimental doesn't mean that it isn't getting bug reports and fixes. It just means that it isn't on the path to inclusion in sarge.

    As soon as sarge is released, GNOME 2.6 will go into unstable.

    As far as I recall, all that Fedora has available at the moment in any official capacity is a GNOME 2.5.x development release.

  30. No: Re:Red Hat violating the GPL!? by lordcorusa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your assumption seems to be unduly alarmist. Here is my understanding of what Red Hat has done, based on reading their publications and talking with their representatives:

    Red Hat's support contract is the means they use to restrict you from installing the RHEL binary distribution on multiple machines. When you purchase the RHEL package, you are essentially buying a support contract for one machine, and getting a gratis RHEL distribution with it. Part of the support contract says that you agree to put that copy of the distro on only that one machine. Put it on multiple machines, and you invalidate your support contract, but nothing more; you still have the right to use the distro thanks to the GPL, but don't expect Red Hat to help you with it at all. Therefore, this is not technically a violation of the GPL, because the only thing you lose by invalidating the support contract is your right to get support.

    This support contract change was done in response to the common practice of installing RHL on 100 machines, buying support for one machine, then changing the supported machine every time a problem occurred. As far as I am concerned, the tactic is reasonable. As to whether the specific price points are unreasonable, that will be decided by the market.

    --
    The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
  31. WHAT obligation to distribute ISOs? by The+Monster · · Score: 4, Informative
    Where can I download the ISO images of the real RHEL Linux?
    I don't recall the provision of the GPL that requires binary distribution to anyone who wants a copy. (Where can I download that paragraph?) In fact, I'm pretty sure that all it requires is that if binaries are distributed, source must also be made available to those same recipients. Red Hat is doing even better than that ( emphasis in A: mine):
    Q: You mentioned licensing - what does this mean? I thought Linux was free.
    A: Except for a few components provided by third parties (for example, Java) all the code in Red Hat products is open source and licensed under the GPL (or a similar license, such as the LGPL). So you always have free access to the source code. In fact you can download it from our FTP servers at any time. However, Red Hat does not provide free access to the binaries . . . .
    Under the GPL, RH is under no obligation to give source code to random, anonymous third parties -- only to those people to whom RH distributes binaries. Further, (despite assertions elsewhere to the contrary) anyone who has purchased the RHEL package for even one machine cannot by the terms of the GPL be denied the legal right to sell or give copies of all of the GPL software to anyone they wish. Any attempt by RH to assert such restrictions would void their license to redistribute the GPLed contributions of thousands, if not millions, of programmers. RH knows better than that.
    --

    [100% ISO 646 Compliant]
    SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.

  32. License does not forbid sharing. by The+Monster · · Score: 2, Interesting
    although you can technically share the software the reasonable way to do so is prohibited . . .read the actual license at here
    I read the license. It specifically explains how to legally share the software - specifically by deleting RH trademarks and 'anaconda-images'. I don't believe anyone thinks that someone has the right to distribute RH software, with its trademarks and everything present. But I could be wrong. Maybe the FSF should look into it.
    --

    [100% ISO 646 Compliant]
    SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.

  33. Daniel Lyons Article by Xenographic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is another Daniel Lyons article.

    Daniel Lyons is an idiot. He does no research whatsoever, as far as I can tell. He wrote a piece on Groklaw that consisted of reading PJ's (inaccurate, to protect her privacy) whois information on her domain and accusing her of working for IBM simply because IBM has an office in that city (the irony being that she doesn't actually live there...).

    To support his arguements, he quoted random trolls. I don't remember offhand if they were from Yahoo or Slashdot, but it doesn't matter and I mention this simply to give you some idea of how little thought this man puts into his pieces.

    In short, the proper response to an idiotic article like this is simply to consider the source, and then ignore it. Save, of course, that I reccomend to everyone who might care that they never subscribe to Forbes because their research is shoddy, and I can prove it with respect to these stories.

    At least Didio seemed to finally wake up when last she commented on SCO, only to stop commenting on it (at least, so far as I have seen as of this writing). Lyons, however, seems to have gotten upset when it became clear to anyone following the SCO story that he had done no research, and is thus personally invested in the story at this point. That is the only explanation I can give for his incredibly infantile and poorly reserached article on PJ, which was, ironically motivated by her comments that he needed to do better research...

    So then, it is clear that Forbes' editors are prone to letting poorly researched crap past them (assuming they actually do any sort of editorial review over Lyons to begin with), and that the entire publication should be considered suspect until such time as they can demonstrate better research skills, not to mention a higher level of maturity.

    Frankly, to me, Lyons is nothing more than a troll who uses a spell checker and has wider readership. My primary uses for his article consist entierly of a meager amount of comedic value and source material to have printed on novelty toilet paper. I should hope that no one ever decides to challenge that as fair use, because I would have too much amusement in creating bad puns with the acronym IP... ;]

  34. Actually a good move on Microsoft's part. by ajutla · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Microsoft is concentrating first on a security-focused update (SP2) to Windows XP. I think this shows that at least MS is trying to work out outstanding problems in their existing OS before rushing Longhorn and forcing people to upgrade to that to improve their security. It looks like---or at least I hope, that MS is paying more attention now to making their products more secure, . I wonder if this has anything to do with the deluge of viruses hitting Win computers in the past few several months (like Blaster). Probably.

  35. Jumping the Shark by SoupIsGood+Food · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:Jumping the Shark by Erwos · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What you're neglecting to mention is the fact that Novell is also moving to aggressively lock people into Netware. Have you ever talked with any of their sales reps?

      The last time they came to my university (around 3 weeks ago or so), it was a _debacle_. They said they didn't feel any particular need to GPL everything. They said they weren't going to support anything but SuSE for Netware. They lied to us directly when we asked whether Netware was going to move entirely to a Linux kernel ("we'll do both forever!" Right.). They talked about how great their pricing scheme was, but when further queried, they _didn't have one ready_. We could not have bought from them even if we wanted to!

      Compare this to the Red Hat rep, who told us exactly what we wanted to hear, and then offered us amazing terms for licensing. Novell may or may not be doing a good job on the corporate side, but they've effectively locked themselves out of the rather lucrative educational market, unless they magically turn comptent real fast.

      In other words, Novell just bought SuSE and Ximian. Give them some time to make idiot mistakes in public, and I promise you'll see them. Novell's management is not exactly the greatest ever.

      I also think that people don't understand what exactly the benefits of RHN are _besides_ the updates. That's only part of it. It's absolutely excellent to be able to remotely schedule individual updates to individual machines, as well as remotely install packages without touching the command line. Red Hat _is_ genuinely easier to administrate than pretty much every other distribution I've seen - I think RH just does a poor job of marketing that.

      Making a mistake is not the same thing as jumping the shark. If Red Hat starts bleeding subscribers (which, I should note, they have NOT done), we can talk about their situation in more dire terms. But Novell buying SuSE does not suddenly make them into an unstoppable juggernaut.

      -Erwos

      --
      Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  36. Want RH Enterprise 3 without the RH license crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's always CentOS 3.1.

    http://www.centos.org/

    It's Redhat Enterprise 3 minus all the proprietary crap (built from the same SRPMs) and it's free. For those who don't have time to keep up with all the security goings on, they seem to be Johnny on the spot with security/bug updates so a simple:

    yum update

    will check for and install updates on all installed packages. Good stuff. I'm in the process of upgrading my farm of RH 7.3 boxen to Centos 3.1 now and it has been rather painless. I wanted to stick with something that "looked like" Redhat to eliminate the admin learning curve and to make it easy to install commercial packages that are dependent on Redhat-isms.

    Cheers,

  37. "Lightning rod" by adminispheroid · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From reading a few of Daniel Lyons' recent articles, it is apparent that Forbes is taking pointers from AM talk radio. If, like Rush Limbaugh, you make a lot of outrageous statements and then back them up with flimsy arguments, you get a lot of attention -- a lot more than if you had said something reasonable. And so your site gets slashdotted, and if you're Forbes, that means you make a fortune from your advertisers. In the media, this is called having someone who acts like a "lightning rod". Perhaps this approach is familiar to those on slashdot, where it is called "flamebait".

    Although Linux and open source in general are favorite Daniel Lyons topics, he recently published two incoherent rants trashing Sun. But it's likely he gets a bigger response out of trashing open source, so he'll probably return to that.

    So if you like this kind of trash talk, fine, but if you don't, just do what you do with Rush: stop listening.

  38. RH does not lock out other support vendors by The+Monster · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If you have to pay for support to get the software that doesn't really seem very different than paying for the software.
    The GPL never guaranteed gratis, only libre. RH is doing the source gratis to anyone who wants it.
    It would be different if you could opt out and maybe get support elsewhere.
    I fail to see how anyone is forbidden from opting out. You can either compile it yourself, find someone who bought a service contract to give you a copy with the RH trademarks removed, or buy a contract yourself for the minimum 1 year period, then go to someone else for support.

    Or don't use RHEL. Use Fedora, SuSE, Debian, Gentoo, or anything else you want. The freedom of RH do do this and still comply with the GPL is a feature, not a bug. It's proof that the whole 'GPL is viral' nonsense is the FUD I keep telling people it is.

    --

    [100% ISO 646 Compliant]
    SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.

  39. NO -- though is GPL really violated? by jtheory · · Score: 2, Informative

    They are specifically saying that you can't install their Linux software on other computers:

    If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System [sic], then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System.

    An "Installed System" is defined earlier on in the document:

    The term "Installed Systems" means the number of Systems on which Customer installs the Software. The term "System" means the hardware on which the Software is installed[...]

    I don't think they quite violate the GPL, though. Read on down to where they discuss what "the Software" is -- it's everything that RedHat sells you, including mostly GPL programs and some freeware (which they specifically say have their own EULAs). They go on in a lot of details about how you have different rights for different Linux programs, and copyright is held by a lot of different people, including RedHat themselves in some cases (and they DO have the right to stop you from using the stuff they have copyright over). From what I can tell, you are free to pick apart a RedHat Enterprise Linux install and install almost all of the pieces on another server, free of restrictions (though they hide these details down near the end and clearly don't want anyone doing it). Still, I suspect that if you just installed a new system straight off the CDs, you would NOT be legal even if all software is GPL, because the default install will use the RedHat online services, etc. which you haven't paid for.

    Another excerpt to help you get to sleep tonight:

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a modular operating system made up of hundreds of individual software components, each of which was individually written and copyrighted, and the EULA of each component is located in the source code for the component. Throughout this document the components are referred to as the "Linux Programs." Most of the Linux Programs are licensed pursuant to a Linux EULA that permits Customer to copy, modify, and redistribute the software, in both source code and binary code forms. With the exception of certain image files identified below, the remaining Linux Programs are freeware or have been placed in the public domain. Customer must review these Linux EULAs carefully, in order to understand its rights and to realize the maximum benefits available with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Nothing herein limits Customer's rights under, or grants Customer rights that supersede, the terms of any applicable Linux EULA. Red Hat may provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux or other software or content by means of Red Hat Network or Red Hat Enterprise Network. Each software component has its own applicable EULA and all content is provided subject to its own licensing terms.

    Then they just list Java as having its own special license (no mention of any of their own software...) then:

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux itself is a collective work under U.S. Copyright Law. Subject to the trademark use limitations set forth below, Red Hat grants Customer a license in this collective work pursuant to the GNU General Public License.

    --
    There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
  40. Man. by Fussen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    '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?

  41. I don't want to be Microsoft by provoix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From the article: Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Red Hat, says Carey's views do not represent those of most Red Hat customers. But in the same conversation, 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."

    There can only be one monopoly for any given new market. It is the nature of things (e.g. telephony, steel industry, automobile industry, oil, etc.) Unfortunately, M$'s market/technology was a worldwide phenomenon (spelling?). IMHO, M$ was a monopoly that should have been caught long before.

    This claim by Szulik (no doubt spoken without thought) reveals their true ethic where OSS is concerned.

    There can only be one Ra...