Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat to Enter the Desktop Market
head_dunce writes "It looks like Red Hat is going to release their Global Desktop Linux in September and give Ubuntu a challenge for the Linux desktop market. Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'" It looks like another choice for the proverbial Aunt Tillie. The release is being delayed in order to provide greater media compatibility, "to permit users to view a wide range of video formats on their computers."
It seems Ubuntu is capturing all attention right now:
% 2Cgentoo%2Credhat&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu
And how long before CentOS creates a perfect replica thanks to the GPL?
I am officially gone from
A linux distro where I can download an ISO and install from that ISO and get a version of ffmpeg and friend that doesn't have 90% of the media formats disabled.
Compared to DEB, RPM is a much superior format. The problem with RPM is not RPM itself but the idiots who try to use the rpm command-line tool like apt-get and then complain when it doesn't do what they expect it to do (because that's not what it's supposed to do). You are supposed to use "yum", which works just like apt-get. It even lets you install RPMs that you've already downloaded. E.g. "yum localinstall foo.rpm". It will even download dependencies for you! It's also really fast in fc6 and f7.
The only negative I can see is that there aren't as many packages available in the Fedora repositories. That's hardly a fault of RPM, though.
Alan Cox and the other big shots at Redhat have in the past repeatedly said that they will not add support for mp3, or any other patended technology into Redhat. It all started with 8.0, and RH's policy has been AFAIK to tell the user that so-and-so will never be supported until the patent expires. Its sad to see such a good ideaology been tossed aside because of market pressure.
Whatever, I am not one to complain, but given the way Bluecurve was thrust upon users, and the way that they crippled kde so that gnome looks better (I dont want to start a holy flame war, but this *was* the state of things 5-6 years ago), I doubt whether they will make any serious dent in the market. But this is free software, the more people focussing on an area usually only brings the better - atleast its going to be code that others can use too.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
And both ubuntu and red hat desktop linux having no pact with microsoft is good news too.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
But he never said that they would have to with RPM either. All he said is that they could use --define on the rpmbuild command line to pass in information to the specfile, which is free to interpret that information however it wishes, including, but not limited to, modifying configure flags.
There is accountability because managers and execs can bypass blame and point right to Microsoft or another vendor. If they were to do that with a Free OS like Ubuntu, the blame comes back to them for "using something that was free to try to save money". Note, I don't agree with this stupidity, but it seems pervasive in American management.
I cut my teeth on Red Hat and like the way it is set up. The only reason I started to use Ubuntu more is because of how vast the repository is and how well all the packages play together. With Fedora, you can add 3rd party repositories, but you will run in to conflicts. This is the only reason I dropped Fedora for Ubuntu.
I say give Red Hat a chance and wait and see how it turns out. If they include LEGAL codecs, that could be huge. With Ubuntu to play proprietary audio/video codecs you have to use unauthorized software. To a home user this isn't a bid deal, but to companies it is a deal breaker. Most license holders won't go after Joe Linux User for using an MP3 codec. However, with a company, that could lead to some nice cash for infringement.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
According to TFA, Red Hat is targetting public administration and small business in developing countries. This is a very price-conscious market. If the only competitive advantage they have over the competition (Ubuntu, pirated Windows, etc) is that they offer some warm-and-fuzzy feeling that the product is supported by a corporation, they are doomed to fail. Canonical already offer support à la carte (you buy support only if you need it), which make Red Hat Global Desktop compulsory subscription a fairly though sell.
Red Hat (and Novell) strategy of charging per-seat "subscription" is doomed to fail on the desktop. Really, this is paramount to the proprietary software business model of charging licensing fees per seat. And why would anybody choose to engage a recurring cost for an *operating system* is beyond me (but then, people flocked to "Software Assurance", go figure). To have any chance, they would need to charge very little for this "subscription", which raise the question of profitability. Maybe they would have a chance if they where giving away these desktop "subscriptions" to existing customers of RHEL as a perk.
Red Hat never understood the Linux desktop market, and apparently never will. It is a good thing they dominate a profitable niche in replacing Solaris as a platform to run Oracle and other enterprise software, because they completely suck at market development. I would hate them to go away; they are very goods corporate Open-Source citizens that contributes significantly to key Open-Source project, so I hope this niche will not dry up in the near future.
As a side note, if you think Red Hat can afford to dispatch a field engineer for desktop problem on the premise of a small business customer, your expectations need a little adjustment.
:wq
Yes yes I have I managed a citrix farm of 5 servers for 4 years. I set it up I managed it daily I even set up the replacement upgraded servers before I left. Citrix server failovers rarely work right and a host of other problems that cause pain and misery. The windows terminal servers suck WAY more than citrix in every way. When I helped set up 15 LTS servers for 3 schools I could not believe how incredibly easy it was. I went over it for 2 more days wanting to know if we missed anything, we didn't. they are that easy. Almost every single Linux app is written for server use and multi-user. Almost NO windows apps are written that way and cause hell and heartache under a citrix setup.
Citrix SUCKS compared to LTS hands down.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Red Hat developers contribute to various open source projects and make almost half the patches to the kernel.
Ubuntu on the other hand doesn't even make their own packages: They repackage debian ones in most cases.
If you want to get phone support Canonical also charges money, but very little of that goes to bettering open source projects.
I fear the Y2038 bug
There is another reason too, and one that is a major factor of why Windows is a corporate staple: Due diligence with corporate regulations.
Windows is certified, both in FIPS and Common Criteria. This allows corporate legal, should something happen, show the auditors, press, and possibly law enforcement (as some SOX or HIPAA violations mean prison time) documentation that every piece of the system, from the OS on up, is certified secure.
Few operating systems have these certifications other than Windows. Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX do, because it costs a lot of cash to pass the OS in front of certifying bodies for approval. Even fewer operating systems intended for the desktop have this.
Redhat does. This positions Redhat in a place that very few desktop operating systems are qualified (and this is not a technical or quality item, but a presence/absence of very expensive papers with signatures. I'm pretty sure that any UNIX variant out there can easily qualify for FIPS 141-1 certification.) Apple states on their website (http://www.apple.com/itpro/federal/) that they have Common Criteria validation, but FIPS certification is still in the works. Even though pretty much any UNIX based OS can technically support FIPS, its having the certification that is critical, so companies can show to their internal auditors (and the SEC) that due diligence is being followed.
Regardless of which distribution of Linux people advocate, having another option on corporate desktops is a plus for everybody.