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CentOS 4.3 Multi-Platform Release
hughesjr writes "The CentOS development team has announced the availability of CentOS-4.3 for the i386, x86_64, and ia64 architectures. Major changes in this version of CentOS include: upgraded update system - this new system provides more that 100 total mirrors for updates and picks geographically close and non-stale mirrors based on our master server's content; Frysk, InfiniBand Architecture (IBA), and z/VM hypervisor added; see the release announcement for more information. ISO's are also available for download on their site."
It's a reliable "clone" of RHEL, it's free, it's very well supported and it placed 2nd in the most recent Linux Journal reader's choice awards.
I'd say that makes it important and relevant for hobbyists and people who are using their servers for real work alike.
Cheers,
If it was really that easy, CentOS wouldn't exist because there would be no value to it. For starters, packaging is no small task - one package may not work with glibc because they don't explicitely include errno.h, another has a broken makefile, another may install its files in weird places and give no option for relocating because their authors are jackasses, another utill uses imake and not make, et cetera, et cetera. Never mind building and verifying dependency chains, backporting security fixes, doing regression checking, integrating it into the platform (e.g. setting up log rotation, lsb compliant init scripts, etc).
Red Hat brings a ton of value to the free software world, not just in the resources that the distribution, but in development as well. They employ a very significant number of kernel developers, gcc developers (remember, they bought Cygnus and inherited most of their employees), gnome developers, et cetera. They've acquired a number of previously propriety software and open sourced them - think GFS and Netscape Enterprise Directory Server (now Fedora Directory Server) for starters.
That's not to say I have any qualms about using CentOS. Red Hat benefits from other projects, other projects benefit from Red Hat. That's the beauty of the free software community.
Which again, changes absolutely nothing. They're using other people's code, which they didn't write, and are making money off of it. They aren't paying back the majority of the code contributors, and no matter how butt hurt you get over it, they aren't the primary source of all that is linux. Do they host some important projects? Sure. Does the majority of the code they use come from other people (who they aren't funding)? Yup.
Take a look at the base install packages of RHEL4 and let me know how many of them were written by Redhat and get back to me.
Get YOUR facts straight.
Red Hat owns the images and copyrights that have the words "Red Hat." Thats it, and thats what your paying for when you buy RHEL.
Hardly. What you are paying for is a support contract for that specific build of RHEL on a specific machine or set of machines. Redhat is in the business of selling support contracts, they've choosen to sell them for specific builds of the RHEL distribution. There is no deeper, trickier meaning beyond that.
Red Hat has no problem with not paying for OSS packages it uses, why should I have a problem with not paying Red Hat?
Whether they do or do not make any significant contributions to the OSS/Free source base is irrelevant.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Its not like they [RedHat] own or do the majority of the work on the software.
Give me a fucking break. RedHat pays Alan Cox's salary. RedHat is big into the development of gcc and glibc. RedHat has become basically the standard for Linux distros (for bad or good). RedHat is only by more PBHs than SuSe, and second to Suse by almost nobody, depending on the region of the world you come from. RedHat has been known and is still (via Fedora) the "bleeding edge" distro. And that has made a number of OSS packages to keep up to date and squash a bunch of latent bugs in the process. To my knowledge, RedHat is the most supported Linux distro when multiplied by the number of platforms it runs on (3rd party support, software actually working support, paid for Indian support, don't blame me support, etc).
As far as the US, and much of the Linux community is concerned, RedHat is a "good thing".
Personally, I would rather use Debian or Gentoo, but I have only been inconvenienced with running RedHat Linux. Performance is above average, stability is above average, ease of install is well above average, 3rd party support is second to none, etc.
Like RedHat or not, they have done good stuff for the computing world.
I love CentOS and thank god it ramped up when it did. RH9 support was over and I was concerned about an upgrade path. I looked at a bunch of distros but honestly, as an admin/programmer I don't want to deal with learning all the details about another distro since I've been using Redhat for years. So CentOS picked up speed (and users) and have been releasing a solid product for years (based off the hard work from Redhat and the OSS developers of course).
Also, don't forget to donate. While my company didn't pay for RH9, I was able to get them to fork out some cash for the CentOS team. I would have to do A LOT more work if it weren't for those guys.
--Ajay
They're using other people's code, which they didn't write, and are making money off of it.
With their permission of course. Red Hat is complying with the entire letter and spirit of the F/OSS licenses under which they obtained the code. In GPL, it's as simple as this: you can take, modify and redistribute my software, as long as you pass along the same rights to users of the modified work. This doesn't preclude make a buck, or even a lot of bucks.
If this is not what the original authors intended, they should have used a license that allowed modified version to be distributed for non-commercial purposes only. If they chose the GPL "by accident", then they should speak up; if enough of the contributors to a particular project raise enough of a ruckus, there's always a possibility Red Hat would replace that project in their products.
But none of us, who aren't contributors to the code in question, have have any right to speak on the behalf of the authors.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.