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."

Comments

A day late and a dollar short.

[gumpish]

Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases).

Maybe the execs at Red Hat need to update their hat size as whatever they're wearing appears to be cutting off circulation to their brains.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[mikael]

Hmmm, let's see... on the one hand I can start paying for updates after 12 months.... on the other hand I get free updates for 18 months (or 36 months for LTS releases).

Business people like accountability, and the ability to see that a problem is under control. Being able to
tell them that you have arranged for a field engineer scheduled to visit, or that the support team is working on the problem, is more reassuring to them than saying that that you have sent out an E-mail to a discussion group to see if anyone else has had a similar problem. To them, either you are the person to fix the problem or you can't.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[squiggleslash]

That's right. We should all try to price everything identically and then somehow end up with choices of different products and services that cater to different needs despite all of that.

Well, maybe not. Perhaps we should see what RedHat plans to produce that justifies the expense. Me, personally, I've subscribed to pay services in lieu of free services because I felt the pay service was worth spending money on, it wasn't excessively priced, and I'd rather support an organization dedicated to providing me with a service than one that ultimately is responsible only to itself, or to a myriad of advertisers with their own agendas.

I'm not knocking Ubuntu, and without seeing RedHat's product, it's impossible for me to judge as to whether it'll be worth the money, but the notion that we can make that judgement right now purely on the basis of cost per month of service is ridiculous.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[JimDaGeek]

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.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Etyenne]

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.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[init100]

Canonical has done a great job of building a community that is loyal

A community that happily piss on other Linux users because they are not using Ubuntu. That is quite a strong turn-off.

It would be one thing if they were few and far between, but every time there is a story about a non-Ubuntu distro, there are a whole lot of comments like

Are they still alive? Why the heck are those users not using Ubuntu instead? Ubuntu FTW! Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu!

and

The problem with <distro XXXX> is that it isn't Ubuntu.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[Sillygates]

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.

Re:A day late and a dollar short.

[VON-MAN]

Red Hat developers made almost half of the kernel patches? Well, that's stretching it a bit.

Luckily, Jonathan Corbet did two excellent pieces on this matter on LWN:http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/ and http://lwn.net/Articles/224244/. These show that Red Hat is there in the top with Intel, IBM, Novell and the Linux Foundation. FYI

They better hurry

[dybdahl]

It seems Ubuntu is capturing all attention right now:

http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu% 2Cgentoo%2Credhat&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

RedHat Panic

[Anonymous Coward]

This has "OMG Ubunutu is getting so much press, we need some of that action quick or they'll own the market!" panic written all over it.

CentOS

[dkleinsc]

And how long before CentOS creates a perfect replica thanks to the GPL?

Re:CentOS

[lordtoran]

These "clones" don't threaten Red Hat's business, because they don't come with these all-in-one support options that businesses love. Plus they have to contribute modified code back, so it's even a kind of win-win situation.

Beyond the average user

[HangingChad]

The release is being delayed in order to provide greater media compatibility

As much as I like Ubuntu, getting some of the media types working was a royal pain. The average user would have difficulty and they certainly don't understand the legal reasons for the exclusion.

Proprietary file formats are from the devil.

Re:Beyond the average user

[Constantine XVI]

Don't know if you've used 7.04 (Feisty) yet, but they've made codec installation as simple as:
1) Attempt to play file
2) codec-buddy pops up and tells you what you need to install
3) Press OK, read applicable legal crap
4) Type in your password to install the software
5) Go!

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[siride]

Talk to the patent owners or the legal system, not the distros. They're just doing what they have to do.

Uh oh

[DogDude]

This isn't a good sign. They just got finished dumping their desktop version, and now they're making another one? Sounds like their management is starting to flounder. Either they're a desktop software company, or they're not. They've already left the market, and only a few years later, they're re-inventing the wheel to get back in? That's crazy. It reminds me of Sun "The network is the computer. No it's not." Microsystems.

Re:More choice

[KingSkippus]

Well, that's true, but I also think that part of the problem is people who create packages that don't understand how to use RPM. I can't tell you how many times I've seen installation instructions that include things like "use --force to bypass the version checking..."

Of course, then we get into how complicated RPM is for normal software developers to use. I mean, just because I write awesome nifty C++ code doesn't mean I'm an expert in RPM. (Nor should it, really.)

What we need is a way for installation configuration to be simplified both for end users and developers. I can't tell you how many times I've churned out some widget to do something and ended up spending more time tweaking installation packages than I did on writing the thing it was installing.

Re:Wake Us Up When...

[MrHanky]

Application folders and "drag and drop installation" won't work on Linux, as you can't know which libraries are installed on the computer, and in which version. Say you want to install the Kword 2.0 beta. This depends on the kdelibs 4.0 (beta) and the Koffice libs. With an app folder approach, the Kword 2.0 beta would have to package those libraries as well. And so would all the other apps depending on those libraries. Or, of course, they could all be one huge package with lots of stuff you don't need.

There is another approach, of course, which is that of Apple: You know mostly which libraries are installed on the system, since they are all part of the OS, but when there is an application depending on a newer version of the libraries, you have to pay Apple for a newer version of the whole OS as well. This is easy enough if you have a monopoly on that particular platform, but then you also have a proprietary platform. Red Hat doesn't have that privilege.

What you want is obviously a Mac. Then get a Mac.

YALD

[wwmedia]

we dont need Yet Another Linux Distro, there are plenty already! we need them developers join a bigger project like Ubuntu and Suse and not reinvent the wheel over and over

"LTS" is Long Term Support.

[khasim]

It's from Ubuntu.

You can pay for per-incident support from Canonical. Or you can purchase a support contract from them.

Either way, it's as good as what Red Hat is offering ... or better. And it's already established. And it's a very popular desktop distribution.

Re:"LTS" is Linux Terminal Server

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard of Linux Terminal Server, but Ubuntu definitely uses "LTS" to mean "Long Term Support." From their site, "The 'LTS' version of Ubuntu receives long-term support. 3 years for desktop versions and 5 years for server versions."

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[BlueParrot]

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.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn gets pretty much as close as is possible within legal limits. From the documentation:

Click Applications Add/Remove. In the top right, change the setting to All available applications. Then select Other in the left panel and then select the Ubuntu restricted extras package. Click OK.

This will install a whole lot of crap that is restricted by software patents (mp3 support etc ), or stuff that isn't completely free ( like Flash and Sun Java ). Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken.

Re:All I want in a linux distro is...

[jez9999]

Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken.

Couldn't they install it by default for non-US regional releases?

Re:Excellent News

[6031769]

I hate to be the one to have to tell you, but that is not where your cummerbund should be.