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Ubuntu to Bring About Red Hat's Demise?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the straight-from-the-tea-leaves dept.

Tony Mobily has written a thought-provoking editorial for Free Software Magazine that makes the bold prediction of Red Hat's eventual demise at the hands of Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu. Calling on memories of Red Hat alienating their desktop user base to focus on their corporate customers and making money, Mobily states that many of those alienated desktop users are also system administrators who now feel more comfortable with Ubuntu and will make the choice to use Ubuntu Server over Red Hat now and in the future.

8 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. Bologna! by mkswap-notwar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I really don't see this happening. Red Hat has a good presence in the server market, where as Ubuntu doesn't have that yet. I know Ubuntu is the "in" thing right now, but I don't see it toppling other vendors with established business models.

    --
    "I reject your reality, and substitute my own!"
    1. Re:Bologna! by seb249 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It may not happen in the short term, but .. I do know that i used to use Red Hat for various purposes and when they changed to a corporate focus felt more than a little "ditched" as a customer. I did use to purchase Boxed sets and have been on a few of their training courses in the past.

      Subsequently i have changed most the servers i take care of to Debian, and on the desktop I use Ubuntu.

      That being said I have no reason to look from Debian to ubuntu in the server space but newer Linux admins may find it appropriate.

    2. Re:Bologna! by Peter+La+Casse · · Score: 3, Interesting
      That being said I have no reason to look from Debian to ubuntu in the server space but newer Linux admins may find it appropriate.

      I'm in a similar situation as you, typically using Debian on servers and Ubuntu on the desktop, and a reason for switching to Ubuntu on the server did recently occur to me: if Debian continues this breakneck release pace (less than two years between releases? Egad!) then Ubuntu LTS might actually force less frequent upgrades.

    3. Re:Bologna! by bogado · · Score: 4, Interesting

      well the article assumes that everyone that uses Ubuntu for the desktop will fall in love with it and never look fedora to fedora again. But my experience is not like that. When I first came to linux I studied witch version I would use, I quickly saw two option, debian and redhat. Without a good connection, I ordered both from "cheap bytes". Tryed both, but with debian I almost didn't pass the installation pass, it was spartan. Redhat in the other hand was quite easy and I got confortable with the OS very quickly.

      So I was a redhat user. I didn't like when the fedora was launched, but keep with. FC1 was launched and then FC2 and FC3, by the time FC4 was out I was hearing all those background noises, "ubuntu is cool", "ubunto this", "ubuntu that", so I gave it a try. I downloaded the instalation and gave it a try.

      I spended most of the FC4 time using ubuntu, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't that much better. It did came with some drivers that redhat refuses to bundle, but on the other hand it did not have "mp3" and other MM in the same way that redhat din't. But the worst part was to develop with Ubuntu...

      First I had to install the compilers that did not installed in the first round, ok compilers are a specific need and should not be installed in the generic desktop instalation, fedora also do not install those by default. But ubuntu did not gave me a choice to install them. The second head ache was with compiling gnome stuff, I had to install every gnome library 'dev' package by hand, a never ending task since there is aways another one that you forgot...

      But I had it when I installed the motif, first I had the same problem that I had with the gnome devel. But until now I was patient and thought "sure this is a one time thing". But then I discovered that the package that had the Xt* development had not bundled the man pages, so I didn't have the man pages a 100% necessary tool. So I go to ubuntu's bug site and search the DB, I find a bug filled with this problem and the solution is "fixed for the next version". So a packeger did a mistake, ok fine everyone does them. But not updating the packaging until the next version, is an abuse. This fix would not step on anyother package toe, it should have been updated as soon as it was found. So I had to live without those man pages, the package didn't even showed up in the backports.

      So what happened? I am now using FC5. I was not pleased with ubuntu, it was a nice desktop and all and I see why many people love it and may even try it again in the future, but for now I will keep going with my fedora experience.

      --
      []'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins

      ^[:wq

    4. Re:Bologna! by Jerry · · Score: 3, Interesting
      For many of them, paying someone to be accountable is worth the rather small licensing fees.


      Who's accountable?


      Not Microsoft. Not any of the PC OEMs that include Windows on the products. Not Novell. Not any Linux distro I am aware of.


      EVERY ONE OF THEM have disclaimers the limit their liability to $5 or less and put the entire onus on the user. No one has successfully sued Microsoft because they lost data or revenue when their Windows servers or desktops crashed. I am not aware of RH or any FOSS project losing a lawsuit filed by a user because of any problems they had using the OS or software.


      So, exactly what accountability is someone buying when they pay for a subscription or a License?

      Essentially, they are paying for a skilled voice at the other end of a phone line, or a reasonably timed professional response to an email asking for help. That service can be purchased independently of an OS or application, but even then those services have contractual escapes from "accountability" for any problems caused by using their service, or any software or hardware they support.


      Having previously purchased a RHELS 3.0 one year subscription for $750, I can say that my experience with their support was not even as good as doing a google search for an answer to the questions I had. In fact, when RH support came back with an answer three business days later their solution was contained in two URLs, both of which I had located on my own within 20 minutes and before I posted my request for RH support. My son, the Oracle DBA, says that in his experience paid Oracle support is an oxymoron. He regularly uses Google and free, user maintained Oracle forums to solve problems.


      Other organizations may give better support. I've found that Trolltech, for example, gives excellent support for their commerical QT products. But, YMMV.


      All in all, the best and fastest support are the user forums and Google.

      --

      Running with Linux for over 20 years!

  2. Uh huh by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This coming from the same general crowd that claims that Linux on the desktop is going to take over Windows in "just a few years." This goes firmly in the "wishful thinking" category.

    One reason that Ubuntu will never be accepted: they don't offer the things that make beancounters sleep well at night. They don't have an "enterprise edition." They give it away for free - it can't be any good, right?

    Ultimately, Red Hat targets corporate clients. Ubuntu doesn't. And it's not like that's bad!

  3. Low end always wins by countach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The low end always wins (eventually)

    PCs (nearly) killed mainframes. Windows nearly killed unix, until free unix came along. Linux is eating into windows server. Ubuntu is eating into Red Hat.

    Eventually the mass market product overruns the corporate product, but it takes a lot of time.

  4. Who says... by camcorder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ubuntu is better than Fedora in Desktop Market? People keep saying, ubuntu is cool, but I really don't see why it is? To me it is torture. Worse than Fedora on default fonts selection, official repositories do not have recent versions of software. Fedora do not have meaningless patches for should be default and consistent interfaces (like nautilus, add panel dialog etc.) It's way easier to find rpm of a release than .deb version. Also what's the point of having something installed and waiting hours for internet download time, instead of downloading a DVD while you were sleeping, and get everything at once.

    For me ubuntu is no more than a buzz word, which uses Debian as a source of fame.