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Businesses Choosing "Community" Linux Distros
An anonymous reader sends along a PCWorld recap of a new study by the 451 Group, which claims that business use of 'community' Linux distributions is on the rise — distros like Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian, as opposed to "corporate" packages like RHEL and Suse. The trend is most evident in Europe. The article points out examples in Sweden and Germany, and cites growing in-house expertise with Linux as one factor helping enterprises get comfortable choosing Linux distros without commercial support. Interestingly, the Swedish company mentioned, Blocket.se, has made a one-off support arrangement with their hardware vendor HP: "HP is really providing device driver and utility support it uses for customers running RHEL, but because the two distributions are binary-compatible, that support approach works just fine for CentOS. Blocket relies on its own engineers, systems administration, and software development to get its applications running on Linux. "
How is Ubuntu not a corporate distribution? There is a
corporation developing and releasing that
product, even if it is loosely based on Debian.
This is how things are supposed to work with linux, isn't it? You support your local economy by using local people, instead of sending money away to whereever the HQ happens to be.
I thought this was one of the strengths with linux. Let's see if RH or SUSE has a business model that works according to this reality.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
In Brazil, some times companies use Debian as their main SO, and hire their own support.
I must confess I have no idea how much "enterprise" distro charge for support, but I think that if companies are starting to use their own support, it must not be cheap. Maybe this should send a message to RH and company
Make It Secret Protect your privacy
isn't that better for the economy overall than paying private company x for a complete solution. At least doing it this way keeps money and jobs nearby.
Jonathanjk.com
We use SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) from Novell for many of our servers, and are very happy with how easy it is to maintain (a lease cycle for the hardware eliminates the need for upgrades). I would be extremely hard-pressed to even consider using a community edition for production servers - that corporate-level support is extremely important.
However, when it comes to the desktop, the community editions offer more modern features - Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), is several years behind the current Open Source SuSE.
If the linux desktop ever comes of age for the average user, SLED may offer a very stable, easy to use environment (at least for supported hardware). However, since Linux Desktop is still primarily a developer's game, the OSS version offers the bleeding edge developers like, and know how to cope with.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
I call astroturf on the above...
Actually, there are plenty of reasons to choose a supported distro, even at a purely technical institution. For many organizations, it doesn't make sense to devote time or personnel to debugging system problems,
Looking at the cost of labor, when you're working with low end stuff, it's usually cheaper to replace the hardware with something that is supported than waste labor time. When working with high end stuff, someone's job is/was on the line when they specified the equipment, so presumably they got it right due to careful research. It's a good question if there is a middle ground anymore or if that has been overlapped and eliminated.
and it often costs more to have an IT department handle everything than to have someone from Red Hat or Novell solve the problem
Usually the more people you involve the longer it takes. Realize that it is extremely unlikely that RHEL or Novell has hired author of the software that is having a problem, and probably not likely they have anyone with more experience than your own guys in your field of endeavor. It is also highly unlikely that you are having a problem with the distribution mechanism itself (bug in dpkg or apt-get or whatever). So, what it boils down to, is it more efficient for someone familiar with your local system to use google to find the answer, or to have your guys spend extra time explaining the problem to someone else, who knows nothing about your system, so they can use google to find the answer?
Or did you think the most successful financial companies in the world made an unplanned decision
Considering that virtually all financial companies are either bankrupt or going bankrupt due to fraud and stupidity, looking at them as a role model seems about a decade out of date.
Virtually all decisions made to buy support contracts are either:
1) Out of touch "pre google era" PHB decision
2) No internal skillset for something that is business critical, terrible is better than nothing at all.
3) Cascading interlocking licenses and requirements (you "need" oracle, which requires RHEL, so you "need" a contract) That is a bad economic structure which will eventually be worked around or eliminated.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger