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Red Hat Avoids Desktop Linux, Says Too Tough

Posted by Zonk on from the choosing-where-to-fight-your-battles dept.

eldavojohn writes "We recently discussed the Linux Foundation's decision to leave desktop Linux alone but Red Hat is also steering clear of that goal. The reason? It's too tough. From the company blog: 'It's worth pointing out what's missing in the list above: we have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future. An explanation: as a public, for-profit company, Red Hat must create products and technologies with an eye on the bottom line, and with desktops this is much harder to do than with servers.'"

8 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. F8 is bozo by Dr.+Tom · · Score: -1, Troll

    Yeah, F8 is a real deprovement over F7. I switched to xubuntu.

  2. Re:Desktop Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I'd agree with redhat not profitable atm - although having said that 90% of my office(the non laptop crowd) are on terminals connecting to centos based x-servers - We wouldn't pay a per user fee for it though....

  3. Re:The problem is software. by JeremyGNJ · · Score: 0, Troll

    The problem is that no one is going to take the time to write "high quality" software for linux, unless they're going to make money on it. Since they know most Linux users will either

    A. Attack them for not being "free and open"
    B. Steal the software anyway

    It's not likely you'll ever see such an animal.

  4. Re:Whither Fedora? by plague3106 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The personal desktop market isn't profitable when you have to compete against an illegal monopoly.

    "Illegal monopoly" makes you sound like an idiot, because monopolies aren't illegal.

  5. Re:Whither Fedora? by plague3106 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The abuse is illegal, the monopoly is not. There is a difference.

  6. Re:Is Company Driven Linux Meant for the Desktop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "perhaps America's economic woes are driving Red Hat away from funding things that, frankly, have no return on investment?"

    Are you slow or something? Corporations exist to make money and anything not spent on making more money is not acceptible. They don't see a way to make enough on desktop Linux to make any money. It's called capitalism, it sucks, but it works for rich people so we all deal with it.

    And the word "woes" does not make you sound smarter, the opposite is true, in fact.

  7. Re:Whither Fedora? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    an illegal monopoly Sorry... illegal monopoly.... Not quite, maybe monopolistic practices, but the fact that OSX is doing quite well along with many different linux distros that while not on the same stage can and are competing with the monopoly you are talking about. They are definately the 100000 lb gorilla but they are not the ONLY gorilla. For COI, I have MS and Linux comps and use them both.
  8. Re:Linux is NOT desktop ready by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I've said for a long time that Linux is not desktop ready.

    (snip BS)
    So I bought the next best thing. A Mac Book Pro

    Thats all I have to say. Which wasn't much. Anybody would choose OS X over Linux is a tool. Have you looked under the hood of your fabled OS X? Just look at the directory structure alone. Shit is spewed all over the place.

    Be honest, you bought the MacBook Pro because it just looks good. You're making a fashion statement, right? Pretty boy running a Pretty OS. Pffft. Go diddle your Finder, Macboy.