Red Hat and Fedora Linux are pleased to announce an alignment of their mutually complementary core proficiencies leveraging them synergistically in the creation of the Fedora Project, a paradigm shift for Linux technology development and rolling early deployment models.
We are <...> *thud*
One two ... one two ... testing, is this thing on?
Hello, this is, um, the Engineers speaking. We are still really excited about the project, but this time we have more than just dates. We hope fedora.redhat.com will answer lots of your questions, and are sure it will pose a few new ones.
Why Fedora?
Red Hat has a lot of experience in building solid dependable core distributions while the Fedora Linux Project has lots of experience in building effective infrastructure and policy to create many high quality add on packages. Both groups decided to merge the two projects and build outward using our shared experience, and to use the name "Fedora Project".
We don't pretend the merge will be smooth or immediate, but we firmly believe that working with the Fedora Linux Project will get external projects and add-ons up and running better and faster than we could on our own and we are proud to be working with them.
The Fedora Project is something special. It enables Red Hat and the community to work together to provide the community with rapid rolling releases and to get new technology into the hands of developers.
With the solid establishment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat now has a platform for predictable change and high quality support for customers, and for our ISV and IHV partners. Fedora is about the community, about cool new technologies, and extending existing Red Hat tools in a collaborative community. Our new up2date, for example, supports YUM and apt-get repositories.
Fellow Fedorans, a new dawn is upon us, let us begin.
Please note: The http://rhl.redhat.com/ web site has been renamed http://fedora.redhat.com/ and the mailing lists have all been renamed: rhl-list@redhat.com -> fedora-list@redhat.com rhl-beta-list@redhat.com -> fedora-test-list@redhat.com rhl-devel-list@redhat.com -> fedora-devel-list@redhat.com rhl-docs-list@redhat.com -> fedora-docs-list@redhat.com Your subscriptions have been preserved, moved over to the new names for the lists.
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
I'd lose the "um, " because it breaks the flow of the joke but thats me being pedantic. Looks fine
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Hi,
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Michael K. Johnson wrote:
Red Hat and Fedora Linux are pleased to announce an alignment of their mutually complementary core proficiencies leveraging them synergistically in the creation of the Fedora Project, a paradigm shift for Linux technology development and rolling early deployment models.
<snip>
Ok, let's take a deep breath...and...
==================== http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html
says .. "Please keep in mind that Fedora Core is not a supported product of Red Hat."
Fedora Core
The distribution: the package set that is included on the set of ISO images and directory tree blessed by the steering committee and released as Fedora Core. The steering committee sets policies for Fedora Core, and provides the infrastructure to build it. Red Hat Network carries the core package set. ==================
What will happen from now on? Shall we use Red Hat Linux 10 or Fedora Linux bla bla? Why will Red Hat will "not" support Fedora Core? Why didn't RH wait until the release of Cambrigde? Why, why....
There will be a lot of questions I suppose, after a clearer explanation of what's going on.
Regards, - -- Devrim GUNDUZ devrim@gunduz.org devrim.gunduz@linux.org.tr http://www.tdmsoft.com http://www.gunduz.org
On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 12:18, Devrim GUNDUZ wrote:
What will happen from now on? Shall we use Red Hat Linux 10 or Fedora Linux bla bla?
There is no Red Hat Linux 10. There's the Fedora Project, with Fedora Core that contains a base Linux distribution; this is an open source project. Then there is Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is a product of Red Hat, Inc. RHEL has various versions (WS, ES, AS) for different applications.
This table attempts to summarize the difference between our operating system products and the Fedora Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
Why will Red Hat will "not" support Fedora Core?
You probably want to be clear about what "support" means to you. Which row of the above table. Then we can answer your question better.
Many of the table rows interact. In particular, the long release cycle and reduced package set of RHEL enable many of its other attributes (such as certifications, longer update lifetime, etc.).
Havoc
On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 12:53:29PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
This table attempts to summarize the difference between our operating system products and the Fedora Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
Well, I can't read this different from "Red Hat stops delivering a freely available Linux distribution", which I consider bad news :-(.
Related to "freely available": it's not completely clear what the "Licensing: open source" and the "Downloads: source only, or ..." in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux column on the above referred page *exactly* means w.r.t. what people/companies outside Red Hat may or mayt not do with it. I guess I have to read the trademark-related pages at the Red Hat site for that?
On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 13:12, Jos Vos wrote:
On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 12:53:29PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
This table attempts to summarize the difference between our operating system products and the Fedora Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
Well, I can't read this different from "Red Hat stops delivering a freely available Linux distribution", which I consider bad news :-(.
"freely available" could be misleading, remember that our products are still open source, the issue here is freeness of beer not speech.
It is accurate that don't currently plan more commercial products for free (beer) download in binary form.
Related to "freely available": it's not completely clear what the "Licensing: open source" and the "Downloads: source only, or ..." in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux column on the above referred page *exactly* means w.r.t. what people/companies outside Red Hat may or mayt not do with it. I guess I have to read the trademark-related pages at the Red Hat site for that?
You have to read the RHEL agreement, I can't find the link right now but various people have posted it in the past. Trademark guidelines apply but probably aren't the primary issue in governing what you can do.
My understanding is that you have the rights under the open source licenses to use, modify, and distribute (we cannot and do not want to remove these), but to get maintenance and support *from us* you have to subscribe per-system.
But of course I am not a lawyer or official spokesperson, you really have to read the agreement and you may want to talk to the Red Hat salespeople as they answer questions about this kind of thing all day.
Havoc
Havoc,
Points noted..
However, what about those of us who purchase a few RHN subscriptions to support their RH linux?
Obviously, I realize that you can't answer on this, but maybe you could push it along.
The real issue for us (a cheap edu) was the cost differential between RHEL and RHL.
I realize you might not care about our money each year, and I realize that (i believe this was stated) fedora upgrades will be carried via RHN. I have to ask myself if RH is still the linux we want to use.
Tom
On 22 Sep 2003, Havoc Pennington wrote:
On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 13:12, Jos Vos wrote:
On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 12:53:29PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
This table attempts to summarize the difference between our operating system products and the Fedora Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
Well, I can't read this different from "Red Hat stops delivering a freely available Linux distribution", which I consider bad news :-(.
"freely available" could be misleading, remember that our products are still open source, the issue here is freeness of beer not speech.
It is accurate that don't currently plan more commercial products for free (beer) download in binary form.
Related to "freely available": it's not completely clear what the "Licensing: open source" and the "Downloads: source only, or ..." in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux column on the above referred page *exactly* means w.r.t. what people/companies outside Red Hat may or mayt not do with it. I guess I have to read the trademark-related pages at the Red Hat site for that?
You have to read the RHEL agreement, I can't find the link right now but various people have posted it in the past. Trademark guidelines apply but probably aren't the primary issue in governing what you can do.
My understanding is that you have the rights under the open source licenses to use, modify, and distribute (we cannot and do not want to remove these), but to get maintenance and support *from us* you have to subscribe per-system.
But of course I am not a lawyer or official spokesperson, you really have to read the agreement and you may want to talk to the Red Hat salespeople as they answer questions about this kind of thing all day.
Havoc
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Tom Ryan wrote:
Havoc,
Points noted..
However, what about those of us who purchase a few RHN subscriptions to support their RH linux?
Obviously, I realize that you can't answer on this, but maybe you could push it along.
The real issue for us (a cheap edu) was the cost differential between RHEL and RHL.
I realize you might not care about our money each year, and I realize that (i believe this was stated) fedora upgrades will be carried via RHN. I have to ask myself if RH is still the linux we want to use.
This is a critical issue for me also. I work for a .edu, volunteer for another .edu, and run a home network. I run RHN demo accounts on 9 systems (the home and volunteer .edu environments) and RHL basic accounts on 4 systems (work .edu).
The things that are important to this mix are (in rough order of priority): cost, security, and stability. The things that are not important are support and the latest technology.
In the past, RHL boxed sets seemed to provide a reasonable balance: low cost (you only have to buy one set), security updates in a timely manner by RHN (or apt if you relied on external services), and stability somewhere between RHEL and what the Fedora Project seems to be aimed at.
This mix seems to be particularly unfriendly to RH now. To get stability and security, we have to dramatically increase cost, and to decrease cost, we have to decrease stability and possibly security.
I really like RHL. RPM (lockups aside) is great. The interface is quite good (although better icewm support wouldn't go astray :-). However, because the emphasis is moving away from something that is practical, i will have to reconsider the distro i use when the next release comes out. I really don't like the other options much:
- Debian: stable & unstable seem very similar to Fedora & RHEL respectively, and thus come with the same set of problems (except cost), not to mention learning new ways of doing certain important things.
- Gentoo: Feels like they conceived the project by saying "let's take the worst parts of the *BSD projects and use them on Linux": everyone has to be a build engineer. (I once watched a work colleague who used FreeBSD spend a whole day breaking his system when he tried to install galeon.)
- SuSE: Development process is closed and download policy is not very "friendly".
- Mandrake: Didn't they go bankrupt?
The list goes on...
Can't there be a middle ground? I suggest this: - Provide RHEL binaries & ISOs by download as per current RHL. - Drop support for RHN demo subscriptions. Transition Fedora and RHEL download customers to apt, relying on mirror sites to provide bandwidth. - Provide the option for people running RHEL to take up varying levels of RHN functionality. (The functionality increase from RHN basic to RHN enterprise is insufficent to justify the cost at the moment.) - Provide the option for people running RHEL to take up various support contracts.
Most of the other aspects of the Fedora Project seem good, and they could coexist with the above easily, IMO.
Paul http://paulgear.webhop.net
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 09:22:26PM +1000, Paul Gear wrote:
- Provide RHEL binaries & ISOs by download as per current RHL.
How would providing RHEL binaries and ISO's for free improve the situation?
Would you prefer if RedHat closed its doors permanently?
If you really feel so strongly about it, be an entrepeneur of sorts, grab the sources from RedHat's site, produce the binaries, and distribute them at cost, or with a small take. The GNU license that most of the software RedHat distributes guarantees you this right.
If you can break even, you've demonstrated that you were right all along.
If you can't, what you are asking is for somebody else who is experienced in the field, who has recently decided that this is *not* the way to go, to take the risk, without any personal responsibility on your part for your suggestion.
I don't buy into this 'companies must give out everything for free, and if we need support, we'll pay for it'. Organizations given this option, more often than not, choose not to take the support option for *some* invented excuse, which usually includes 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had support', or in your case, 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had the binaries'...
I think it is perfectly reasonable for the open source community to work on something like Fedora, get Fedora for free (not for free, when you look at it this way), and leave RHEL for the user base that requires support and a longer release cycle.
Perhaps I'm biased as I *hate* the longer release cycle.
mark
Mark Mielke wrote:
... I don't buy into this 'companies must give out everything for free, and if we need support, we'll pay for it'. Organizations given this option, more often than not, choose not to take the support option for *some* invented excuse, which usually includes 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had support', or in your case, 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had the binaries'...
I'm afraid that's just a fact of life in the .edu community. As i said, the school i volunteer for can't even afford the RHL basic subscription.
I think it is perfectly reasonable for the open source community to work on something like Fedora, get Fedora for free (not for free, when you look at it this way), and leave RHEL for the user base that requires support and a longer release cycle.
My point was that some people need a longer release cycle without support.
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
Paul
If you find what you are looking for, let me know. I am most interested.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Paul Gear Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 4:46 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora Project: Announcing New Direction
Mark Mielke wrote:
... I don't buy into this 'companies must give out everything for free, and if we need support, we'll pay for it'. Organizations given this option, more often than not, choose not to take the support option for
*some* invented excuse, which usually includes 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had support', or in your case, 'well I can't afford the minimum support package that you offer, but I do wish I had the binaries'...
I'm afraid that's just a fact of life in the .edu community. As i said, the school i volunteer for can't even afford the RHL basic subscription.
I think it is perfectly reasonable for the open source community to work on something like Fedora, get Fedora for free (not for free, when
you look at it this way), and leave RHEL for the user base that requires support and a longer release cycle.
My point was that some people need a longer release cycle without support.
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
Paul
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:45, Paul Gear wrote:
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
The costs of producing your distribution would cause Red Hat to lose money on every box set produced. The Red Hat Linux box set model was not profitable. Red Hat is a corporate entity, and we are in this to make money.
That means that we might not have a product that fits your needs, and yes, that sucks. But we put source code for everything in the distribution out there for you to use under a license that lets you do whatever you want with it. Most corporations would be horrified at the thought of such a thing.
Red Hat doesn't have to do a Fedora Core. We could focus all our efforts on RHEL and tell everyone who doesn't want to pay us $$$ to stop bothering us. We are doing a Fedora Core. We're trying to make the developers and the open source community happy. We're trying to give them a chance to make a really good Linux distribution in the spirit and style of Red Hat Linux.
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent. We can't do that anymore. It's too expensive, we'd cease to exist. Fedora Core is the compromise. We spent a long time trying to make the most people happy, we listened to all the complaints (yes, even the most irrational ones), and we came up with the best option we could.
If you don't want to pay for RHN, Fedora Core will support multiple types of package repositories. If you do, we'll have that available to you. If you want updates beyond what Red Hat builds for the Fedora project, volunteer to maintain it yourself. If you want to build an RPM that violates 14 patent laws and the Geneva convention, we can't support you or link to you, but we can't stop you either.
We've put a lot of skin in the game, not to mention engineering time and money, because we believe that Open Source works. But we can't go under for Open Source.
Simply put: Fedora Core is what you make it. I could elaborate on that point endlessly, but the point of it is to give the control back to the community. Red Hat is going to help, we're going to oversee, but we're not going to restrict it.
I agree wholeheartedly that we need to do something special for the unique needs of educational institutions, and we're working on something. If your educational institution would like to talk about finding a way to meet your Linux needs through Red Hat, I would be happy to arrange such a discussion.
~spot --- Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat*com> LCA, RHCE Red Hat Sales Engineer || Aurora SPARC Linux Project Leader
"The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published." -- Aldous Huxley
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:15, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:45, Paul Gear wrote:
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
The costs of producing your distribution would cause Red Hat to lose money on every box set produced. The Red Hat Linux box set model was not profitable. Red Hat is a corporate entity, and we are in this to make money.
Since someone currently from Red Hat has mentioned this.. lets just say it is very unprofitable. Returns of 'damaged/unsold' are >40%, and to make money on say a $39.99 dollar set you need to have 0 support, 0 books, and no goodies in the box. The money you make on it after you count storage, retail cuts, distributor cuts, and other channel cuts is about $1.00 per box. [This is in US dollars with US taxes.. other countries systems of product delivery and tax systems change the price layout usually.]
If you are wondering how MacMillan was putting out so many boxed sets back in 1999/2000... it was a tax writeoff. They didnt expect to make money on it, and I have a feeling that Mandrake got the shaft because they were given maybe 0.50 per box sold. [From what I heard from a friend of a cousin of a friend, they may more from donations to the Mandrake CLub than they did from selling boxed sets. And they just get enough from the donations to keep the website and lights on.]
Sales online of the product without going through middlemen has always been bad enough that you couldnt pay for the internet connection. Even if you did it on a print on demand (as RH did in its very early days.) you would just cover cost of doing business if you pared down the staff to 10-18 people.
On 23 Sep 2003, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:45, Paul Gear wrote:
<snip>
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent. We can't do that anymore. It's too expensive,
<cut>
I currently have 14 systems subscribed to RHN which I hope results in profit for Redhat. These are RH 7.3 through 9 boxes serving small businesses.
Do I have to take that money elsewhere????
Richard.
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 16:58, Richard Ames wrote:
I currently have 14 systems subscribed to RHN which I hope results in profit for Redhat. These are RH 7.3 through 9 boxes serving small businesses.
Do I have to take that money elsewhere????
Of course not. There will be releases of Fedora Core, you can run it with RHN providing updates.
~spot --- Tom "spot" Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat*com> LCA, RHCE Red Hat Sales Engineer || Aurora SPARC Linux Project Leader
"The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and potentially subversive. Not to be published." -- Aldous Huxley
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 17:15, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
Red Hat doesn't have to do a Fedora Core. We could focus all our efforts on RHEL and tell everyone who doesn't want to pay us $$$ to stop bothering us. We are doing a Fedora Core. We're trying to make the developers and the open source community happy. We're trying to give them a chance to make a really good Linux distribution in the spirit and style of Red Hat Linux.
I'd add to this, while the Fedora Project is something I hope non-Red-Hat people are excited about, it's not purely an effort to make people happy. It's intended to be a worthwhile project for Red Hat, for all its contributors, and for the target audience.
The Fedora Project and also our architecture announcement today (http://www.redhat.com/software/architecture/) reflect a belief in the value of the open source approach.
Havoc
On 23 Sep 2003, Havoc Pennington wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 17:15, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
Red Hat doesn't have to do a Fedora Core. We could focus all our efforts on RHEL and tell everyone who doesn't want to pay us $$$ to stop bothering us. We are doing a Fedora Core. We're trying to make the developers and the open source community happy. We're trying to give them a chance to make a really good Linux distribution in the spirit and style of Red Hat Linux.
I'd add to this, while the Fedora Project is something I hope non-Red-Hat people are excited about, it's not purely an effort to make people happy. It's intended to be a worthwhile project for Red Hat, for all its contributors, and for the target audience.
The Fedora Project and also our architecture announcement today (http://www.redhat.com/software/architecture/) reflect a belief in the value of the open source approach.
Havoc
Much of the concern that has been expressed involves the stability of the Fedora releases. With Redhat branded releases we were assured that they went through a disciplined testing and quality methodolgy.
It is my impression that this formal process will not apply to the Fedora Project. While Redhat personnel will supervise the Fedora testing it will be much less disciplined and thorough than what we're used to.
In other words, it will be suitable for hobbyists and home use but not for any serious applications. Is this true?
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 17:50, Gerry Doris wrote:
It is my impression that this formal process will not apply to the Fedora Project. While Redhat personnel will supervise the Fedora testing it will be much less disciplined and thorough than what we're used to.
Take some time and read through the process papers that are at the old fedora.us site. They are a very formal and disciplined methodology for getting packages out. Hell they are a lot cleaner than other places I know...
In other words, it will be suitable for hobbyists and home use but not for any serious applications. Is this true?
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 16:50, Gerry Doris wrote:
Much of the concern that has been expressed involves the stability of the Fedora releases. With Redhat branded releases we were assured that they went through a disciplined testing and quality methodolgy.
Are you familiar with the current methodology for building and releasing Fedora packages? http://www.fedora.us/wiki/PackageSubmissionQAPolicy
It is my impression that this formal process will not apply to the Fedora Project. While Redhat personnel will supervise the Fedora testing it will be much less disciplined and thorough than what we're used to.
In other words, it will be suitable for hobbyists and home use but not for any serious applications. Is this true?
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 19:50, Gerry Doris wrote:
Much of the concern that has been expressed involves the stability of the Fedora releases. With Redhat branded releases we were assured that they went through a disciplined testing and quality methodolgy.
It is my impression that this formal process will not apply to the Fedora Project. While Redhat personnel will supervise the Fedora testing it will be much less disciplined and thorough than what we're used to.
The intent is not to be sloppy, deliberately break things, or add wildly unusable cvs snapshots, no. I plan to run Fedora on my workstation for example and I will get grumpy if it doesn't work. ;-)
The intent _is_ to add the latest released versions of packages, though, to have feature updates rather than bugfixes-only, and to have frequent releases.
The exact policies and processes aren't really decided, they will be discussed a good bit on the mailing lists I expect.
Havoc
I am with you Havoc. I also plan to run Fedora. I have been looking forward to something like this. I have been using RHL since I started using linux (RH 5.2) and I am looking forward to the opprotunity to give back some and participate.
I think from an earlier post someone said that there will be Fedora Core which will feed RHL and that will feed RHEL I dont see the problem. RHN will work with these... right? You still have Yum and apt-get repos.
Well, lets open our minds, drop the FUD and lets all have fun with this.
Kreg
Havoc Pennington wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 19:50, Gerry Doris wrote:
Much of the concern that has been expressed involves the stability of the Fedora releases. With Redhat branded releases we were assured that they went through a disciplined testing and quality methodolgy.
It is my impression that this formal process will not apply to the Fedora Project. While Redhat personnel will supervise the Fedora testing it will be much less disciplined and thorough than what we're used to.
The intent is not to be sloppy, deliberately break things, or add wildly unusable cvs snapshots, no. I plan to run Fedora on my workstation for example and I will get grumpy if it doesn't work. ;-)
The intent _is_ to add the latest released versions of packages, though, to have feature updates rather than bugfixes-only, and to have frequent releases.
The exact policies and processes aren't really decided, they will be discussed a good bit on the mailing lists I expect.
Havoc
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 21:08:34 -0400 Kreg Steppe kreg@virtual1.net wrote:
I think from an earlier post someone said that there will be Fedora Core which will feed RHL and that will feed RHEL I dont see the problem.
My understanding of this is that RHL and Fedora have merged. So Fedora Core won't be feeding RHL, it replaces RHL.
RHN will work with these... right? You still have Yum and apt-get repos.
Sure, Fedora provided that before the merge with RHL.
Regards, Sean
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 21:18, Sean Estabrooks wrote:
On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 21:08:34 -0400 Kreg Steppe kreg@virtual1.net wrote:
I think from an earlier post someone said that there will be Fedora Core which will feed RHL and that will feed RHEL I dont see the problem.
My understanding of this is that RHL and Fedora have merged. So Fedora Core won't be feeding RHL, it replaces RHL.
I would say more accurately, RHL forked into Fedora Project on one side and RHEL on the other. (Not that it happened that way historically speaking, but conceptually speaking that's the situation.)
Havoc
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent. We can't do that anymore. It's too expensive, we'd cease to exist. Fedora Core is the compromise. We spent a long time trying to make the most people happy, we listened to all the complaints (yes, even the most irrational ones), and we came up with the best option we could.
I agree that people who expect to get software (and updates) from RedHat forever and not pay anything have little room to complain. RedHat is a company that needs to make money; otherwise, there won't even be a company. However, I do believe that RedHat is neglecting a very important market by not focusing some attention on edus. I understand that Fedora Core is perhaps an attempt to help this group, and we'll have to wait and see if that addresses the edu needs. But I know that there are some universities who are very willing to pay RedHat for software/support/updates but simply can't afford the price "bar" that has been set. Most companies have educational pricing because they understand the value of having educational institutions use their software; I'm sure there are plenty of others who could detail this reasoning better than myself, but tops on my list is that we're teaching the future decision-makers who will be working at the companies at which you're trying to sell your software. It seems to me that RedHat has plenty to gain by offering some special pricing to edus. As far as I know, I haven't heard any mention of this (I specifically asked a RedHat salesperson about this, although admittedly it was quite awhile ago).
I agree wholeheartedly that we need to do something special for the unique needs of educational institutions, and we're working on something. If your educational institution would like to talk about finding a way to meet your Linux needs through Red Hat, I would be happy to arrange such a discussion.
I'm glad to hear that you are working on something. There is a university linux list (univ-linux@linux.duke.edu) that I'm sure would be interested in discussing this with some folks at RedHat.
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 19:09, Jeremy Dreese wrote:
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent. We can't do that anymore. It's too expensive, we'd cease to exist. Fedora Core is the compromise. We spent a long time trying to make the most people happy, we listened to all the complaints (yes, even the most irrational ones), and we came up with the best option we could.
I agree that people who expect to get software (and updates) from RedHat forever and not pay anything have little room to complain. RedHat is a company that needs to make money; otherwise, there won't even be a company. However, I do believe that RedHat is neglecting a very important market by not focusing some attention on edus. I understand that Fedora Core is perhaps an attempt to help this group, and we'll have to wait and see if that addresses the edu needs. But I know that there are some universities who are very willing to pay RedHat for software/support/updates but simply can't afford the price "bar" that has been set. Most companies have educational pricing because they understand the value
I would love to meet them. All I ever dealt with promised money but just kept taking the downloads saying that 100.00, no 70.00, no 50.00, no 20.00 was too much. I felt like the Monty Python skit where you go in and nothing is for sale, just someone there to waste your time.
Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:45, Paul Gear wrote:
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
... The costs of producing your distribution would cause Red Hat to lose money on every box set produced. The Red Hat Linux box set model was not profitable. Red Hat is a corporate entity, and we are in this to make money.
:-( It seems that many people are not understanding what i am talking about here. I'm not asking for you to bring back the RHL boxed set. I'm asking for a suitable combination of FC and RHEL, or more to the point, more suitable .org/.edu pricing on RHEL in exchange for fewer features/less support.
That means that we might not have a product that fits your needs, and yes, that sucks. But we put source code for everything in the distribution out there for you to use under a license that lets you do whatever you want with it. Most corporations would be horrified at the thought of such a thing.
I understand why people keep mentioning this, but it's not an option for 95% of us. If i could make "Paul's Perfect Distribution", i would have already done it. I don't have time to make a distro, and it's not my job anyway: i'm a school IT manager, not a build engineer.
Red Hat doesn't have to do a Fedora Core. We could focus all our efforts on RHEL and tell everyone who doesn't want to pay us $$$ to stop bothering us. We are doing a Fedora Core. We're trying to make the developers and the open source community happy. We're trying to give them a chance to make a really good Linux distribution in the spirit and style of Red Hat Linux.
And what i'm trying to do here is explain how the amount of money you want for RHEL is out of reach for certain types of organisations, but RHEL is the only product you are offering with sufficient stability (in terms of product releases, not reliability) for our needs. Thus we will have to look elsewhere unless something changes.
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent.
I'm not asking for that. I *want* to pay you for maintenance, but not support. We just can't afford it.
From the various replies i've received, people seem to be
misunderstanding what i'm asking for in financial terms, except Richard Ames, who wrote:
... I currently have 14 systems subscribed to RHN which I hope results in profit for Redhat. These are RH 7.3 through 9 boxes serving small businesses.
Do I have to take that money elsewhere????
That is the issue. I want an option for giving money to Red Hat: - One boxed set per year for all my servers is an option. - Paying for RHN service on RHL9 (or something with equivalent release timeframes) is an option. - >$1000 per server per year for RHEL with support isn't an option.
... If you want updates beyond what Red Hat builds for the Fedora project, volunteer to maintain it yourself.
Fedora is targeted at the wrong market. http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html says that Fedora is targeted at "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers", which the .edu market is none of (despite what some people might tell you).
If you want to build an RPM that violates 14 patent laws and the Geneva convention, we can't support you or link to you, but we can't stop you either.
I'm struggling to understand what you're talking about here and why it's relevant to the discussion. Maybe you were trying to be funny. If so, i don't get it. Sorry. :-)
Paul,
Have you taken a look at Red Hat's Basic Edition, which is available for both the ES and WS lines of the software? The price is lower, and includes patches/updates, but no support.
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/purchase/
Erich
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 18:15, Paul Gear wrote:
Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:45, Paul Gear wrote:
Here's my explanation of what i'm looking for: http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
... The costs of producing your distribution would cause Red Hat to lose money on every box set produced. The Red Hat Linux box set model was not profitable. Red Hat is a corporate entity, and we are in this to make money.
:-( It seems that many people are not understanding what i am talking about here. I'm not asking for you to bring back the RHL boxed set. I'm asking for a suitable combination of FC and RHEL, or more to the point, more suitable .org/.edu pricing on RHEL in exchange for fewer features/less support.
That means that we might not have a product that fits your needs, and yes, that sucks. But we put source code for everything in the distribution out there for you to use under a license that lets you do whatever you want with it. Most corporations would be horrified at the thought of such a thing.
I understand why people keep mentioning this, but it's not an option for 95% of us. If i could make "Paul's Perfect Distribution", i would have already done it. I don't have time to make a distro, and it's not my job anyway: i'm a school IT manager, not a build engineer.
Red Hat doesn't have to do a Fedora Core. We could focus all our efforts on RHEL and tell everyone who doesn't want to pay us $$$ to stop bothering us. We are doing a Fedora Core. We're trying to make the developers and the open source community happy. We're trying to give them a chance to make a really good Linux distribution in the spirit and style of Red Hat Linux.
And what i'm trying to do here is explain how the amount of money you want for RHEL is out of reach for certain types of organisations, but RHEL is the only product you are offering with sufficient stability (in terms of product releases, not reliability) for our needs. Thus we will have to look elsewhere unless something changes.
And undoubtedly, this is going to piss off a lot of people who were quite happily taking advantage of Red Hat Linux with 3 years of errata without paying a cent.
I'm not asking for that. I *want* to pay you for maintenance, but not support. We just can't afford it.
From the various replies i've received, people seem to be
misunderstanding what i'm asking for in financial terms, except Richard Ames, who wrote:
... I currently have 14 systems subscribed to RHN which I hope results in profit for Redhat. These are RH 7.3 through 9 boxes serving small businesses.
Do I have to take that money elsewhere????
That is the issue. I want an option for giving money to Red Hat:
- One boxed set per year for all my servers is an option.
- Paying for RHN service on RHL9 (or something with equivalent release
timeframes) is an option.
... If you want updates beyond what Red Hat builds for the Fedora project, volunteer to maintain it yourself.
Fedora is targeted at the wrong market. http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html says that Fedora is targeted at "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers", which the .edu market is none of (despite what some people might tell you).
If you want to build an RPM that violates 14 patent laws and the Geneva convention, we can't support you or link to you, but we can't stop you either.
I'm struggling to understand what you're talking about here and why it's relevant to the discussion. Maybe you were trying to be funny. If so, i don't get it. Sorry. :-) -- Paul http://paulgear.webhop.net
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
Erich S. Morisse wrote:
Paul,
Have you taken a look at Red Hat's Basic Edition, which is available for both the ES and WS lines of the software? The price is lower, and includes patches/updates, but no support.
Good point - now all they need to do is offer 60% discount for .edus. :-)
Buck wrote:
... Hmm, where's your suggestion for Red Hat?
http://paulgear.webhop.net/the_page_formerly_known_as_rhel.html
Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot).
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 12:58, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot).
What people *say* they're willing to pay, and what they'll pay when it actually comes down to it, are two totally different things. Don't you think Red Hat marketing would've picked the perfect price for Red Hat Linux that would've maximized sales already?
To be honest, the only reason I ever paid for Red Hat was to support Red Hat financially. You don't make a business plan of charitable souls like me, tho. ;-) And even I only ever paid for .0 releases, since I found paying a new OS every 6 months a bit insane. When you consider that the only real value you get from a distro like Red Hat over others is support, the price of RHEL actually isn't that bad at all.
A price *I'd* be willing to pay, for a *consumer* OS, and others might be willing to pay, if you want a random guess? $150 for a base OS, and free point releases for a couple years. Is that financially feasible for Red Hat, who doesn't sell extra products on top of the OS like an Office or anything? Prolly not...
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 11:36, Sean Middleditch wrote:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 12:58, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot).
What people *say* they're willing to pay, and what they'll pay when it actually comes down to it, are two totally different things. Don't you think Red Hat marketing would've picked the perfect price for Red Hat Linux that would've maximized sales already?
I am pretty sure they have.. I am just sick and tired of hearing, Thats too much but no one saying what they are really willing to pay.
This has got to be a most difficult question to answer.
Unfortunately, I can't answer your question as asked. I don't know!
The real dilemma is that the provider, whether Red Hat or another Linux operation, needs to make a profit or they will go away (I assume). Linux was created with the idea of offering an operating system at NO COST required, an open license to allow a user to have and use as many copies as desired without violating the copyright and to be freely distributed. I believe his goal is to have offered a product available that anyone with a computer can afford.
I don't have a fixed price I would be willing to pay. I'd certainly find it easier to dish out $60 than $100 and likewise $100 is easier to pay than $1200. I would be willing to pay the $60 for up2date once I have committed myself to Red Hat and once I found an installation that pays me to install and support it, I would include the cost of at least minimum support... The $60 in the least, or up to $150 for pre-pay one or two support events for the year. I would certainly want the option of additional support if needed.
What bothers me is that the GNU license on the product says that If I have the product and wish to distribute it, I can - without recourse! But Red Hat now requires the buyers of their product to sign a contract that takes that very purpose out of the license. If I were to work for a company that has that product, that contract would prevent me from getting a copy to learn from or from installing it on another computer for a backup at the office without paying for it again.
If Red Hat's contract is deemed legal, then they have just effectively found a way around the GNU license. Now they can take what is required to be public by license and taken it for themselves and restricted the distribution.
I believe that's what the license was trying to prevent.
Just my opinion, for whatever its worth.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Smoogen Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 12:59 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: What price do you want?
Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot).
----- Original Message ----- From: "Buck" RHList@towncorp.net To: fedora-list@redhat.com Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 4:50 PM Subject: RE: What price do you want?
The real dilemma is that the provider, whether Red Hat or another Linux operation, needs to make a profit or they will go away (I assume). Linux was created with the idea of offering an operating system at NO COST required, an open license to allow a user to have and use as many copies as desired without violating the copyright and to be freely distributed. I believe his goal is to have offered a product available that anyone with a computer can afford.
Actually, I believe you will find that Linux was originally created because Linus had spare time on his hands, and wanted a version of Unix that could run on 386 computers. GNU/Hurd was created as an open source project, from the start, with the intent of supplying a version of Unix for little or no cost.
What bothers me is that the GNU license on the product says that If I have the product and wish to distribute it, I can - without recourse! But Red Hat now requires the buyers of their product to sign a contract that takes that very purpose out of the license. If I were to work for a company that has that product, that contract would prevent me from getting a copy to learn from or from installing it on another computer for a backup at the office without paying for it again.
If Red Hat's contract is deemed legal, then they have just effectively found a way around the GNU license. Now they can take what is required to be public by license and taken it for themselves and restricted the distribution.
I do not see this as violating the GNU license at all. Remember, the Distro itself is NOT under the GPL. The individual components that make up the distro are. If you want to take the RedHat modified Kernel and redistribute it you are more then welcome. The same goes for Anaconda, the various configuration tools, Xfree86, anything you want. What RedHat has added an additional license on is the way that all of the components are put together, to which there is NO existing license. And what RedHat has done is to put a price tag on 3 things:
1) Their method (and the knowledge that led to the designing and implementing of that method) of compiling, assembling, and distributing all of the individual components into a runable whole. 2) The ability to obtain technical support and package errata for a period of time longer then the life cycle of the individual components. 3) The RedHat name and reputation.
That's what you're paying for...untold thousands of man hours over the past 10-ish years to build this product, and the untold number of man hours to support these releases for 5 years down the road. If you don't feel that the price tag is worth those things, then don't buy it. You are free to roll your own distro, go with Fedora, Debian, Slackware, SuSE, Gentoo, Mandrake, Yellowdog, or any other distro that's out there.
I know that it's been said before, by other people, but I think RedHat made the right choice in spinning off their free product. I've been working with Linux for years, and I still can't manage to build a working system from scratch. Even when following instructions! (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org) Does this mean that I'm willing to pay $750 per server? No....but I don't need the telephone support, but we're seriously discussing picking up the Basic version for $350. Certianly, we'd like it more if it cost less ($199 is a nice price point) but I don't see $350 as being unreasonable, when stacked up against how long it would take us to adjust to a different distro (or gods forbid, roll our own) not only in learning curve in how to do things that we've become accustomed to doing in RH, but also in adapting all of our custom applications to the new systems as well.
We're keeping an eye on Fedora as well, and in a few months, we'll probably make a decision on if we go with Fedora, or we pick up some RHES licenses. It's all going to depend on how stable the Fedora products are looking (not to mention management), and how the new version of RHES runs.
Thanks,
Adam Debus Linux Certified Professional, Linux Certified Administrator #447641 Network Engineer, ReachONE Internet adam@reachone.com
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 20:25, Adam Debus wrote:
I do not see this as violating the GNU license at all. Remember, theDistro itself is NOT under the GPL. The individual components that make up the distro are.
See http://www.redhat.com/licenses/
From http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_2-1.html?country=United+States&
Red Hat Enterprise Linux itself is a collective work under U.S. Copyright Law. Subject to the trademark use limitations set forth below, Red Hat grants Customer a license in this collective work pursuant to the GNU General Public License.
I'm not a lawyer or authorized to give you an official explanation, but as I understand it the cost of RHEL is for the support and services. The work Red Hat does to develop, support, update the OS costs N dollars per system supported. But you should read the web site information yourself (or better, get your lawyer to). Red Hat sales reps are no doubt also used to answering this question authoritatively.
Havoc
For a product or for a service ?? Two different questions.
For a product, I would give very little. One of the appeals of Linux in general is that it is freely available in one form or another. Considering the learning curve, I wouldn't want to pay much just to find out it's "too geeky" for me to understand. Most of my customers consider winders to be "free" since it comes with the computer and few if any would even dream of buying a system without an OS.
For a service, I would pay more readily. I pay a phone bill each month, a light / water bill each month, etc, etc. Why wouldn't I pay a "support" bill each month? I can envision multiple tiers of support; Least expensive would include updates, bug fixes, but no phone or email support. Next tier would include email support with another tier for limited phone support and so on up to "unlimited" support.
I'm currently using a demo up2date account because health and other problems won't let me afford to purchase a years worth. I could probably squeeze a monthly support bill into the budget. That's just me though.
I initially began using Linux with the vision of becoming proficient enough to offer it to my customers as an alternative to winders with support coming from both Red Hat and myself. That "dream" hasn't come to pass for a lot of little reasons. If Fedora isn't well supported, free or otherwise, I don't see it becoming the replacement to Red Hat's desktop product.
Just my cumulative thoughts on the matter.
Joebewan
Mensaje citado por Havoc Pennington hp@redhat.com:
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 20:25, Adam Debus wrote:
I do not see this as violating the GNU license at all. Remember, theDistro itself is NOT under the GPL. The individual components that make up the distro are.
See http://www.redhat.com/licenses/
From http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_2-1.html?country=United+States&
Red Hat Enterprise Linux itself is a collective work under U.S. Copyright Law. Subject to the trademark use limitations set forth below, Red Hat grants Customer a license in this collective work pursuant to the GNU General Public License.I'm not a lawyer or authorized to give you an official explanation, but as I understand it the cost of RHEL is for the support and services. The work Red Hat does to develop, support, update the OS costs N dollars per system supported. But you should read the web site information yourself (or better, get your lawyer to). Red Hat sales reps are no doubt also used to answering this question authoritatively.
redhat sales never awnser me :-(
but, did you the notice the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph ?
as you could notice, i'm from cuba, i'm a cuban citizen and also i live in cuba, so , as explicity say in the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph, i'm avoided to use the RHEL, also the beta :-(, i can understant that RedHat can sell it's soft under GPL but restricting who can get it (as Lindows do) but the BETA version is public !!!??? so how can the BETA public version under the GPL can also be restrict it by the US EXPORT CONTROL ?
sorry this offtopic but I need some anwser, at least comunity anwser, because peoples who supose to anwser me didn't do that.
thanks roger
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On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 12:24:40PM -0400, Roger Pe?a Escobio wrote:
but, did you the notice the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph ? as you could notice, i'm from cuba, i'm a cuban citizen and also i live in cuba, so , as explicity say in the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph, i'm avoided to use the RHEL, also the beta :-(, i can understant that RedHat can sell it's soft under GPL but restricting who can get it (as Lindows do) but the BETA version is public !!!??? so how can the BETA public
GPL is an example of a license. A license restricts your rights in the countries that honour the license. The American government has chosen (perhaps with just cause) to limit exports of any implementations of certain classes of cryptography. The GPL can say what it wants, but the GPL can *not* override the rules of the country. The rules of the country take precedence.
If you have a problem with Cuba showing up in the list of countries that the Americans have chosen not to trust, you should take it up with the American government.
I do not believe it is reasonable to cut out all the cryptographic features in RHEL just to ensure that it can export to all countries in the world. The features are valuable to the rest of us.
Your conflict is with the US, not with any of us, or with RedHat.
Cheers, mark
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Roger Peña Escobio wrote:
as you could notice, i'm from cuba, i'm a cuban citizen and also i live in cuba, so, as explicity say in the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph, i'm avoided to use the RHEL, also the beta :-(
Not quite. Since you live in Cuba, you do not need to follow US law, only Cuba law. The problem here is that Red Hat has to follow US law, which prohibits Red Hat from giving/selling you a copy of the software.
how can the BETA public version under the GPL can also be restrict it by the US EXPORT CONTROL ?
While Red Hat may not be allowed to give you the software, the GPL specifies that Red Hat can not forbid other people to give you a copy of the software, see section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
Mensaje citado por Rik van Riel riel@redhat.com:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Roger Peña Escobio wrote:
as you could notice, i'm from cuba, i'm a cuban citizen and also i live in cuba, so, as explicity say in the EXPORT CONTROL paragraph, i'm avoided to use the RHEL, also the beta :-(
Not quite. Since you live in Cuba, you do not need to follow US law, only Cuba law. The problem here is that Red Hat has to follow US law, which prohibits Red Hat from giving/selling you a copy of the software.
are you telling me that is not my problem is RedHat problem? :-) so i have to keep quiet (my mouse close?) :-) so at least i can get the BETA release?
how can the BETA public version under the GPL can also be restrict it by the US EXPORT CONTROL ?
While Red Hat may not be allowed to give you the software, the GPL specifies that Red Hat can not forbid other people to give you a copy of the software, see section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
well, please, look at the end of the README file that came with RHEL-3.0Beta note "c" item ============================================================================ EXPORT CONTROL
As required by U.S. law, user represents and warrants that it: (a) understands that certain of the software are subject to export controls under the U.S. Commerce Departments Export Administration Regulations (EAR); (b) is not located in a prohibited destination country under the EAR or U.S. sanctions regulations (currently Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria); (c) will not export, re-export, or transfer the software to any prohibited destination, entity, or individual without the necessary export license(s) or authorizations(s) from the U.S. Government; (d) will not use or transfer the software for use in any sensitive nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or missile technology end-uses unless authorized by the U.S. Government by regulation or specific license; (e) understands and agrees that if it is in the United States and exports or transfers the Software to eligible end users, it will, as required by EAR Section 741.17(e), submit semi-annual reports to the Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS), which include the name and address (including country) of each transferee; and (f) understands that countries other than the United States may restrict the import, use, or export of encryption products and that it shall be solely responsible for compliance with any such import, use, or export restrictions.
thanks for the reply :-)
roger
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On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Roger Peña Escobio wrote:
As required by U.S. law, user represents and warrants that it:
Every user under the jurisdiction of U.S. law will have to abide by these rules. Other users are free to make their decisions independant of U.S. law, but have their own laws to take into consideration...
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 01:58:44PM -0400, Rik van Riel wrote:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Roger Peña Escobio wrote:
how can the BETA public version under the GPL can also be restrict it by the US EXPORT CONTROL ?
While Red Hat may not be allowed to give you the software, the GPL specifies that Red Hat can not forbid other people to give you a copy of the software, see section 6: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
Except, that if an American citizen purposefully distributes a copy of the software to Cuba, the American citizen might be guilty of treason, or conspiracy, or something like that.
I doubt it would ever go to court, but you never know...
mark
Adam Debus wrote:
Actually, I believe you will find that Linux was originally createdbecause Linus had spare time on his hands, and wanted a version of Unix that could run on 386 computers. GNU/Hurd was created as an open source project, from the start, with the intent of supplying a version of Unix for little or no cost.
Actually, the GNU project has nothing to do with "Open Source" and never did. GNU started over a decade before the term "Open Source" was coined or before that movement began. The GNU project launched the "Free Software" movement which has profoundly different philosophical underpinnings.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html has more information on this.
Buck wrote:
The real dilemma is that the provider, whether Red Hat or another Linux operation, needs to make a profit or they will go away (I assume).
Yes, they don't be the charity sisters.
Linux was created with the idea of offering an operating system at NO COST required, an open license to allow a user to have and use as many
not true, then false. LiNUX was created because Linus T. wanted a OS for his very very new i386 system. DOS based OS were shit, and he wanted some more professional. But SCO UNIX, now it's funny ;-), cost toooooo much. Then he only got one possibility. To write his OS.
copies as desired without violating the copyright and to be freely distributed. I believe his goal is to have offered a product available that anyone with a computer can afford.
He wanted to do a better MINIX, with a free/open license but the Linux license was not decided until 0.12 or thus. Thanks to Ari Lemmke, Linus got GPL.
What bothers me is that the GNU license on the product says that If I have the product and wish to distribute it, I can - without recourse! But Red Hat now requires the buyers of their product to sign a contract that takes that very purpose out of the license. If I were to work for a company that has that product, that contract would prevent me from getting a copy to learn from or from installing it on another computer for a backup at the office without paying for it again.
If Red Hat's contract is deemed legal, then they have just effectively found a way around the GNU license. Now they can take what is required to be public by license and taken it for themselves and restricted the distribution.
Do you remember Cygnus ? It's same business model. Are you saying that M.Tiemann, D.Henkel and J.Gilmore were breaking GPL ? X-)
not to know how to read is not supported ;-)
http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/rhas-isos http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/ http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Thanks for updating me on the history lesson. I am not expert, I am just going from how I see it. I may indeed, see it wrong so bare with me on that.
I do not know Cygnus or there three men you mentioned. I did read the GPL FAQ. I am not accusing Red Hat or anyone else of violating the GPL, but as I see it, their new policy appends the license.
The way I see it, Red Hat distributes the GPL with the software, but they won't sell it unless the buyer signs a contract that contradicts it saying that they will lose all support if they distribute it or use it on more than one computer.
It is that combination that says effectively, "You can buy this software but you must give up your rights to the GPL I am required to include with it.
I am afraid I would have to see the rule that gives them that right.
I know I am the new kid on the block and you have lived there all your life. I concede that I may be wrong. I am just trying to see this for what it really is.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Xose Vazquez Perez Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:08 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: What price do you want?
If Red Hat's contract is deemed legal, then they have just effectively
found a way around the GNU license. Now they can take what is required to be public by license and taken it for themselves and restricted the distribution.
Do you remember Cygnus ? It's same business model. Are you saying that M.Tiemann, D.Henkel and J.Gilmore were breaking GPL ? X-)
not to know how to read is not supported ;-)
http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/rhas-isos http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/ http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
<Non-lawyerly sense="common">
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 19:57, Buck wrote:
saying that they will lose all support if they distribute it or use it
^^^^^^^
on more than one computer.
That isn't under the GPL. The software is.
They've decided that businesses will pay for support, both directly from Red Hat, and indirectly from ISVs who sign off on the platform. Their contract says they won't support you if you copy the software. You get to decide if that contract makes sense before you sign it. If you violate it, they cancel the contract. The software is yours to keep, minus a couple of pieces such as the non-GPLd artwork. It's hardball, but I don't think it actually violates the GPL.
</Non-lawyerly>
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Buck wrote:
The way I see it, Red Hat distributes the GPL with the software, but they won't sell it unless the buyer signs a contract that contradicts it saying that they will lose all support if they distribute it or use it on more than one computer.
It is actually simpler than that.
On the license thing: The GPL and your right to redistribute and copy around individual pieces licensed under GPL are one thing that nobody can touch. However, the compilation of those pieces as a whole, the way they are put together, does have additional caveats, like if you distribute it you can not call it "Red Hat" anything, you can not use Red Hat trademarks in promoting it without a written permission, etc. You can not represent that you are offering to others a Red Hat product because you are not - you are not offering support, you are not offering any of the genuine Red Hat services that we provide for our products. We're working really hard to make sure that a Red Hat product, when it gets offered, it gets offered with the whole set of support options and services that we currently provide.
On the support contract. This is what many people wrongly perceive as a limitation imposed by Red Hat on the GPL. In fact, this is a matter of a pretty standard support contract. In its simplest terms, it says that if you or your company wants to enter a support contract with Red Hat, you have to buy support for all your Linux servers running a Red Hat release. Our sales folks can get you details on volume discounts and stuff like that. I have seen this called by some folks an "all or nothing" policy - and the debate on its merits can go on ad nauseum. From where we stand, there is a big difference in costs and effort required to support a company with 5 servers compared to one with 1000. We think it is fair to use that number of servers as an indicator of how complex things will be for our support staff.
It is that combination that says effectively, "You can buy this software but you must give up your rights to the GPL I am required to include with it.
I am afraid I would have to see the rule that gives them that right.
I'd like to point out that you are mixing different things together. You are looking at the terms and conditions of a *support contract* and you interpret that as an alteration to the license under which this is distributed. If you want support, the cost is dependent on your network size. Emphasis on "if you want support".
Cristian, speaking for himself -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cristian Gafton -- gafton@redhat.com -- Red Hat, Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else." --Cyrus Curtis
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Cristian Gafton wrote:
that. I have seen this called by some folks an "all or nothing" policy - and the debate on its merits can go on ad nauseum. From where we stand, there is a big difference in costs and effort required to support a company with 5 servers compared to one with 1000. We think it is fair to use that number of servers as an indicator of how complex things will be for our support staff.
IMHO its fair.
The alternative, "pick and choose" would be /hell/ for RH, faced with customers who have a mix of machines which are and are not supported.
regards,
Christian,
Thank you for your reply.
I recognize that you work for Redhat but do not represent them in this conversation. Please recognize that I am hashing this out for myself, not accusing Red Hat of wrong doing. While that has been or may be my perception that they are wrong, we must both remember that perception is shaped only by those fragments we have seen and not those we have not seen. (i.e. the three blind men describing an elephant... One saw a wall, one saw a tree and the other a snake.)
I reviewed the FAQ on the GPL last night. After having read the messages up to this point and after sleeping on it last night, I have re-shaped my thinking a little.
First of all, I have never questioned Red Hat's right to charge any price they want for their product. I have always understood the GPL to allow a person to sell their product for any price they desire to charge, but my problem may be in knowing where the line is drawn in the buyer redistributing the binary.
Here is how I understand the GPL.
If a product is fully covered by GPL, then the creator of the product can sell the product at any desired price but must provide the source code to the buyer for free if requested. If a buyer desires to distribute this product, the buyer may also charge any desired price or may give it away freely but must also provide the source code for free upon request from anyone that gets the product from him.
The problem comes in when proprietary programming or products are used. GPL allows a creator to maintain copyright to any proprietary software included in their creation provided it meets certain terms. To over-simplify this, I will say that if the creator compiles the proprietary code into the same object file, his code assumes the GPL. If, on the other hand, the creator creates a separate compilation of his work and the GPL object calls his object, then his object is not required to be under GPL. Here is the problem: The buyer can distribute the GPL portion but not the proprietary (assuming the creator restricted the distribution of his own work.) The creator is still responsible for distributing the source code of the GPL portion of his work. How does the buyer know which is which?
Begin quote: On the license thing: The GPL and your right to redistribute and copy around individual pieces licensed under GPL are one thing that nobody can touch. However, the compilation of those pieces as a whole, the way they are put together, does have additional caveats, like if you distribute it you can not call it "Red Hat" anything, you can not use Red Hat trademarks in promoting it without a written permission, etc. End quote:
Granted that here you are being specific about Red Hat and I am now on a hypothetical, but I disagree with you in principal, if not in fact. (allow me a little room here and drop the Red Hat name for this part of the discussion, debate or whatever this monster is I created.)
If I take the source code for a word processor, a C compiler and two or three libraries, all GPL products, and I link them in such a way that I produce a new C-compile program (call it "Jump") then I have the right to sell the product at for any price. But, because I don't have any proprietary code, this entire product is licensed under the GPL. I am required to give the source code to the buyers and the buyer can distribute this according to the GPL. Here is an example of my creating a unique collection of GPL items and creating a new product.
If, on the other hand, I create a menu (I think they call them switchboards now) and that menu uses my own coding and I use the menu to make calls to the various GPL products which are modified enough to interface with my menu, then I have a proprietary product. Now, Jump is my product and if I want to, I can upgrade it with the newest GPL modules by modifying them to conform. I may distribute the GPL with it and must provide those source codes, but I am not required to include the source code to my switchboard nor is my buyer allowed to distribute it. But, that same buyer has the right to distribute those portions of GPL that I included.
Likewise, I could create a proprietary c-compiler and a text editor and link them from a modified GPL Library. I still have Jump-C but where do I draw the line in the re-distribution of the binaries? Obviously I have to provide source code for the menu and the GPL libraries I include with the compiler but not the compiler and editor.
The GPL makes provisions for proprietary products included with GPL products. Maybe the real question is how is the binary actually covered?
You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux 9. Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos etc.
Begin quote: You can not represent that you are offering to others a Red Hat product because you are not - you are not offering support, you are not offering any of the genuine Red Hat services that we provide for our products. We're working really hard to make sure that a Red Hat product, when it gets offered, it gets offered with the whole set of support options and services that we currently provide. End quote:
You are effectively saying that if a person distributes Red Hat Advanced Server that it isn't Red Hat unless it comes with the service contract. Here you are mixing the product and the service together. I understand that Red Hat wants to sell a package deal of both the software and the support and not separately, but they are two separate items and as such I am specifically referring to the license covering the software only. It is the service contract that I saw as restricting the distribution of that software, not the software license and that's why we are having this discussion. If Red Hat is selling a service agreement called "Red Hat Advanced Server powered by Red Hat enhanced Fedora Linux and supported by Red Hat Corporation" (That's too much to say lol) then I believe that your statement would be more accurate. Besides, does it cease to become "Red Hat Advanced Server" at the end of the year if the support contract lapses? This is just a technicality and not worth arguing over...
Last year when I did some research to choose a Linux to learn, I chose Red Hat because it offered a free copy of the product (which at that time I believed was free because of the GPL) so I could learn it without dishing out thousands of dollars, and because it offered several levels of support from which I could choose according to my needs.
From what I understand, Fedora will be supported by updates only through
the 4-6 months that it is the active release and 4-6 months while the following release is active. This means the support period will vary from 8-12 months. If, on the other hand, we were guaranteed a full 12 months updates support for each release, I believe it would fill a very big nitch in the market. It isn't as good as what we had with an option of buying needed support, but I believe it would be acceptable to most of us that want to be up-to-date without bleeding. Some of us would want to update when the product has been out a few months and most of the bugs are worked out and still have 9 months of support in case a dangerous exploit is found. Likewise we could install a release and purchase a year's updates for that install and feel safer. At the end of the year, install a new one and continue the trend, or leave the old one until it is necessary to upgrade the computer. Likewise, we would be able to get which ever release is available at the time it is needed and get up to a year's support on it. As I see it, there is no intermediate step from no support to the all-or-nothing support by Red Hat. I guess that Red Hat has decided that I am too small a fry to be worthy of working with. That saddens me but I realize that it is only business. I learned from experience that the 80/20 rule is correct. 20% of your customers account for 80% of your profit. The ideal business is one that only acquires the right 20%.
In all this conversation, I have learned a bit more. Part from reading what others say and part because I my writing these responses reveals flaws in my thinking. It's still a little cloudy to me, but I do see more than I did originally.
I don't know if there is a Linux that offers its latest release free and then they support it for 12 months for a reasonable fee, but I'll be looking for one that at least offers an acceptable compromise. Unfortunately, as I see it, it won't be Red Hat. That's ashamed, too, because with all the books and other resources available for it, it had real promise.
Until next time....
Buck
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 11:11, Buck wrote:
Christian,
Thank you for your reply.
Likewise, I could create a proprietary c-compiler and a text editor and link them from a modified GPL Library. I still have Jump-C but where do I draw the line in the re-distribution of the binaries? Obviously I have to provide source code for the menu and the GPL libraries I include with the compiler but not the compiler and editor.
The GPL makes provisions for proprietary products included with GPL products. Maybe the real question is how is the binary actually covered?
You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux 9. Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos etc.
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
Begin quote:You can not represent that you are offering to others a Red Hat product because you are not - you are not offering support, you are not offering any of the genuine Red Hat services that we provide for our products. We're working really hard to make sure that a Red Hat product, when it gets offered, it gets offered with the whole set of support options and services that we currently provide. End quote:
You are effectively saying that if a person distributes Red Hat Advanced Server that it isn't Red Hat unless it comes with the service contract. Here you are mixing the product and the service together.
I think he is only mixing it where the two intersect (the code that you recieve is supported and maintained by Red Hat). The easy way to get around this restriction is to take all the SRPMS, remove/replace the Red Hat trademarked items (ICONS, Artwork, and maybe one or two), and then recompile the SRPMS into RPMS. At that point you have created your own work. You can not call it Red Hat, but have an almost identical functioning system.
Hat Advanced Server powered by Red Hat enhanced Fedora Linux and supported by Red Hat Corporation" (That's too much to say lol) then I believe that your statement would be more accurate. Besides, does it cease to become "Red Hat Advanced Server" at the end of the year if the support contract lapses? This is just a technicality and not worth arguing over...
I will be honest, it is at this point in the nitty gritty of the GPL and other licenses that my head gets dizzy and I need to get a lawyer. I think that most people who are not fully trained in the legal proffesion can not parse the code into applicable law-machine-code that will run in the court-system-CPU. Instead we parse it into a code that runs in our heads, and then find that we arent compatible with how the court-systems work.
From what I understand, Fedora will be supported by updates only through
the 4-6 months that it is the active release and 4-6 months while the following release is active. This means the support period will vary from 8-12 months. If, on the other hand, we were guaranteed a full 12 months updates support for each release, I believe it would fill a very big nitch in the market. It isn't as good as what we had with an option
It is up to the Fedora Legacy committee (when it is sanctioned by Red Hat) to come up with this in the end. THey will need machines, rules, etc. The basic line might be that Red Hat engineers wont be doing any work on any old package after 6 months. It will be up to the community to bring forth engineers who will volunteer and maintain things longer... if there arent engineers who can/want/will to this then it is more of a statement of the community.
This isnt too different from what the Debian legacy people do. They usually issue a 'we will support the old release for 2-3 months after a new release, but might support it a bit longer.. but dont count on it.' And after every release there are the same complaints that this isnt long enough yadda yadda... however very few of the complainers step up to help out the maintenance people.
This is also an oppurtunity for resellers to change their markets into support full organizations versus light support. People like OwlRiver.com do this already.. they will support Red Hat Linux 5,6, and 7 if you will pay them...
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
hang on -- i thought red hat wasn't even allowing vendors to call it something *similar*, like "pink tie". wasn't it something like this that got online vendors like linuxmall or cheapbytes in trouble?
rday
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 12:00, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
hang on -- i thought red hat wasn't even allowing vendors to call it something *similar*, like "pink tie". wasn't it something like this that got online vendors like linuxmall or cheapbytes in trouble?
Well a quick checking out cheapbytes shows it has the following for sale: Looking for low-cost Linux Distribution CDs containing a Red Hat 9.0 "workalike"? Here they are!
3 CD-ROM Pink Tie 9.0 Install Set Shipping $6.99 6 CD-ROM Pink Tie 9.0 Install & Source Set Shipping $12.99
Thank you, Stephen, for your reply.
Begin Quote:
You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux 9.
Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos
etc.
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
End Quote
I can't speak for 9, but earlier versions of Red Hat have been copied and sold as Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs only for years. I have quite a collection of them myself beginning with 6.something. (I just looked for them and see I have an old 6.0 on a cdr with a paper label that I purchased on EBay years ago.)
I was not referring to changing the code on the RH 9 Disks, just literally burning the ISOs and selling the disk as the Red Hat Linux on CD-ROM only. I understand that if I change the logos I could call it PinkTie and sell it as my own product.
Also, in case you didn't pick up on it, I once believed that GPL gave me the right to distribute those binaries, but it may have been Red Hat that allowed it, or it may be that whomever was doing it is hoping to find a file in his cake. In either case, I am having doubts about that now. I am wondering if the GPL is only concerned with the distribution of the source code.
I believe that Emacs is free and if I wanted to create a package of discs that include Emacs and a few other programs, I could sell the CDs keeping the program in tact as is (together with the source) and be within my rights, but then I think about the Open Office rules. A person could give it away for free but could not charge for the disk. Your Brain On Linux (The name of the seller from which I bought my original Red Hat) got around this by offering a free CD ROM delivered with the Linux Disk or in exchange for a prepaid mailer and blank CD. (I am going on a rusty memory so this may not be exactly what he did. Take it for what it's meant to be, an example.)
So, again, I find myself sorting this all out in my mind.
As for the rest of your reply (which I deleted), I do recognize that the version update support by Fedora is normal for the industry, I just believe there is a good nitch (am I spelling this right?) for a year's update support. (and I will check out Owl River.)
We addressed stripping out the proprietary and recompiling the srpms and I would have my own product. I wonder how hard that would be....... Hmmm. Lol Last time I played with a c compiler, I remember the command line to the compiler being longer than my email messages. I doubt I would master that easily.
Seriously, Thank you for your reply and the link. Hopefully I'll learn all this (except the part we agree that a lawyer needs to figure out) and I'll find an adequate solution.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Smoogen Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 1:47 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Understanding GPL: was...What price do you want?
Begin quote:You can not represent that you are offering to others a Red Hat product because you are not - you are not offering support, you are not offering any of the genuine Red Hat services that we provide for our products. We're working really hard to make sure that a Red Hat product, when it gets offered, it gets offered with the whole set of support options and services that we currently provide. End quote:
You are effectively saying that if a person distributes Red Hat Advanced Server that it isn't Red Hat unless it comes with the service
contract. Here you are mixing the product and the service together.
I think he is only mixing it where the two intersect (the code that you recieve is supported and maintained by Red Hat). The easy way to get around this restriction is to take all the SRPMS, remove/replace the Red Hat trademarked items (ICONS, Artwork, and maybe one or two), and then recompile the SRPMS into RPMS. At that point you have created your own work. You can not call it Red Hat, but have an almost identical functioning system.
Hat Advanced Server powered by Red Hat enhanced Fedora Linux and supported by Red Hat Corporation" (That's too much to say lol) then I believe that your statement would be more accurate. Besides, does it cease to become "Red Hat Advanced Server" at the end of the year if the support contract lapses? This is just a technicality and not worth arguing over...
I will be honest, it is at this point in the nitty gritty of the GPL and other licenses that my head gets dizzy and I need to get a lawyer. I think that most people who are not fully trained in the legal proffesion can not parse the code into applicable law-machine-code that will run in the court-system-CPU. Instead we parse it into a code that runs in our heads, and then find that we arent compatible with how the court-systems work.
From what I understand, Fedora will be supported by updates only through
the 4-6 months that it is the active release and 4-6 months while the following release is active. This means the support period will vary from 8-12 months. If, on the other hand, we were guaranteed a full 12
months updates support for each release, I believe it would fill a very big nitch in the market. It isn't as good as what we had with an
option
It is up to the Fedora Legacy committee (when it is sanctioned by Red Hat) to come up with this in the end. THey will need machines, rules, etc. The basic line might be that Red Hat engineers wont be doing any work on any old package after 6 months. It will be up to the community to bring forth engineers who will volunteer and maintain things longer... if there arent engineers who can/want/will to this then it is more of a statement of the community.
This isnt too different from what the Debian legacy people do. They usually issue a 'we will support the old release for 2-3 months after a new release, but might support it a bit longer.. but dont count on it.' And after every release there are the same complaints that this isnt long enough yadda yadda... however very few of the complainers step up to help out the maintenance people.
This is also an oppurtunity for resellers to change their markets into support full organizations versus light support. People like OwlRiver.com do this already.. they will support Red Hat Linux 5,6, and 7 if you will pay them...
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 13:39, Buck wrote:
Thank you, Stephen, for your reply.
Begin Quote:You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux 9.
Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos
etc.
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
End QuoteI can't speak for 9, but earlier versions of Red Hat have been copied and sold as Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs only for years. I have quite a collection of them myself beginning with 6.something. (I just looked for them and see I have an old 6.0 on a cdr with a paper label that I purchased on EBay years ago.)
The difference between a small private company (Red Hat Linux 6.x) and a publically traded company (Red Hat Linux 7.x). The internal lawyers and external lawyers said that it needed to be clarified and worked on very hard. There the Red Hat license package was added to the distribution which helped clarify and enforce the trademarks.
I was not referring to changing the code on the RH 9 Disks, just literally burning the ISOs and selling the disk as the Red Hat Linux on CD-ROM only. I understand that if I change the logos I could call it PinkTie and sell it as my own product.
The understanding is that you have to change the LOGOs and call it something other than Red Hat. To call it Red Hat causes 'confusion in the marketplace'. I worked in Red Hat support and before 7.x about 2/3 of our unsupported tickets were from people who had bought unofficial Red Hat copies and thought they had the right to support etc that an official boxed set had. Didnt matter if the CDrom looked completely different or said 'NO SUPPORT' in large letters. The name was associated with the company and people thought we had something to do with it.
Thank you very much :)
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Smoogen Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 3:56 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Understanding GPL: was...What price do you want?
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 13:39, Buck wrote:
Thank you, Stephen, for your reply.
Begin Quote:You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux
9.
Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos
etc.
No you can not sell the product as Red Hat Linux 9. You can give it away without changes but if you sell it you must rename it something like PinkTie Linux etc. This is a minimal requirement to keep the trademark under international trademark law.
End QuoteI can't speak for 9, but earlier versions of Red Hat have been copied and sold as Red Hat Linux CD-ROMs only for years. I have quite a collection of them myself beginning with 6.something. (I just looked for them and see I have an old 6.0 on a cdr with a paper label that I purchased on EBay years ago.)
The difference between a small private company (Red Hat Linux 6.x) and a publically traded company (Red Hat Linux 7.x). The internal lawyers and external lawyers said that it needed to be clarified and worked on very hard. There the Red Hat license package was added to the distribution which helped clarify and enforce the trademarks.
I was not referring to changing the code on the RH 9 Disks, just literally burning the ISOs and selling the disk as the Red Hat Linux on CD-ROM only. I understand that if I change the logos I could call it PinkTie and sell it as my own product.
The understanding is that you have to change the LOGOs and call it something other than Red Hat. To call it Red Hat causes 'confusion in the marketplace'. I worked in Red Hat support and before 7.x about 2/3 of our unsupported tickets were from people who had bought unofficial Red Hat copies and thought they had the right to support etc that an official boxed set had. Didnt matter if the CDrom looked completely different or said 'NO SUPPORT' in large letters. The name was associated with the company and people thought we had something to do with it.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:11:22 -0400, Buck wrote:
Likewise, I could create a proprietary c-compiler and a text editor and link them from a modified GPL Library.
^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ Here, terminology is important. Don't confuse two completely separate programs (which can have separate licences), which communicate with eachother, with a proprietary program that is linked with a GPL'ed library. As soon as the combined work can no longer be treated as separate pieces, the GPL applies to the entire work when it applies to one component at least. The difference to the completely separate programs is that you could replace the proprietary programs with GPL'ed programs. If that isn't technically feasible, there is a licence conflict.
In your case, the "menu" program can be GPL and be designed to execute external proprietary programs. No problem with that. The proprietary components may not be linked or tied against your GPL'ed program, however, in a way they cannot be treated as separate pieces any longer.
You mixed in the Red Hat logos and other trademarks. From what I understand, I can copy, sell, or otherwise distribute Red Hat Linux 9. Is this correct? Does not GPL give me that right? RHL includes logos etc.
When the artwork is GPL'ed, yes. Nevertheless, that doesn't nullify trademark laws and copyright laws. You can take GPL'ed pieces and copy, distribute or modify them according to the GPL. You may not sell anything using Red Hat's trademarks, however, without explicit permission from Red Hat. http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/
From what I understand, Fedora will be supported by updates only through the 4-6 months that it is the active release and 4-6 months while the following release is active. This means the support period will vary from 8-12 months. If, on the other hand, we were guaranteed a full 12 months updates support for each release, I believe it would fill a very big nitch in the market.
Something like that could become reality if there were [preferably payed] human resources to develop and maintain those products.
As I see it, there is no intermediate step from no support to the all-or-nothing support by Red Hat. I guess that Red Hat has decided that I am too small a fry to be worthy of working with.
Depends highly on whether any new offerings which are still in the queue will meet your requirements more than with the current situation.
It's a bit of a race between planned official announcements from Red Hat and the uproar of potential customers in the middle of a beta/test period. Your primary contact should be Red Hat Sales, not this list.
I don't know if there is a Linux that offers its latest release free and then they support it for 12 months for a reasonable fee, but I'll be looking for one that at least offers an acceptable compromise.
Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that when the release is free and people are looking for ways to get free access to updates, too. In addition to that, you want guaranteed, timely and tested updates most likely... and a distributor who remains profitable.
- -- Michael, who doesn't reply to top posts and complete quotes anymore.
Stephen Smoogen wrote:
Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot).
Scenario #1: Work, private school
4 servers (mostly <1 year old, only 1 is a "real server", the rest are just decent PCs with 2 HDs), expanding to around 7 soon: RHN basic subscription for RHL is quite affordable at US$60/server/year, but i'd like the ability to update all outstanding all servers at once. Paying a higher price to get this feature would be fine, say, US$65-75/server/year.
For our Novell servers we just play a flat rate (US$2 in our case) per full-time enrolled student per year for a selected set of products and unlimited servers (although we only have 7 and will be reducing this to 3 or 4 in the future). This sort of licensing is a possibility as well (although cheaper than Novell would be better, say US$1 :-).
Scenario #2: Home network
I have 3 full-time servers (2 firewalls & a DMZ server), 1 workstation, and various other installs for testing. I prefer to run the same distribution on my desktop and servers. I also don't have the time or need to upgrade all of my machines every 6-9 months, so i would likely not want to run Fedora.
In this case a yearly subscription where i could install RHEL on an unlimited number of my personal machines would be ideal. Something around the US$100-200 might be OK (although it might be too high for some people).
Scenario #3: Volunteer at a small tertiary college
6 "servers" (all >4 years old, no "real servers", the majority are in the Pentium 100-266 range), 1 on-site support workstation, most support done remotely.
For this organisation, even RHN basic subscription is out of the question in terms of cost - there is no IT department, and no IT budget (or what little there is gets spent on hardware). In this case, i would prefer a flat fee as per my home machines, or student-based licensing.
In all of the above cases, i'd really like a set of CDs/DVDs delivered to me. They don't have to be pretty, just functional. The main reason for this is that on current bandwidth prices, it would cost me a minimum of AU$168 to download a 3 x 700 Mb CD set.
I also think that for any non-profit use (home, education, etc.), it would not be too much to ask that we be able to use RHEL AS rather than the more limited ES or WS. It won't be too long before entry-level servers will come with Itanium or Opteron processors.
For scenarios 2 & 3 above, i have no problem with the updates being via mirror sites and being manual to apply (e.g. have to run apt-get on each machine or login to RHN demo with separate accounts). Paying so little, i don't expect to get a big share of Red Hat's bandwidth.
Note that my concern in all of these scenarios is the affordability for home & non-profit organisations. If it was for work, i'd just make the boss shell out for RHEL ES or WS.
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Paul Gear Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 8:15 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: What price do you want?
Snip \quote Scenario #1: Work, private school
4 servers (mostly <1 year old, only 1 is a "real server", the rest are just decent PCs with 2 HDs), expanding to around 7 soon: RHN basic subscription for RHL is quite affordable at US$60/server/year, but i'd like the ability to update all outstanding all servers at once. Paying a higher price to get this feature would be fine, say, US$65-75/server/year. Quote\
I could live with your above scenario
\quote
Scenario #2: Home network
I have 3 full-time servers (2 firewalls & a DMZ server), 1 workstation, and various other installs for testing. I prefer to run the same distribution on my desktop and servers. I also don't have the time or need to upgrade all of my machines every 6-9 months, so i would likely not want to run Fedora.
In this case a yearly subscription where i could install RHEL on an unlimited number of my personal machines would be ideal. Something around the US$100-200 might be OK (although it might be too high for some people). Quote\
I would make myself afford the $100 for AS as an educational tool. I would probably force myself to budget $200 for it after I am more comfortable installing and using Linux. I would agree it would be worth it but it would cramp my budget.
\quote Scenario #3: Volunteer at a small tertiary college
6 "servers" (all >4 years old, no "real servers", the majority are in the Pentium 100-266 range), 1 on-site support workstation, most support done remotely.
For this organisation, even RHN basic subscription is out of the question in terms of cost - there is no IT department, and no IT budget (or what little there is gets spent on hardware). In this case, i would prefer a flat fee as per my home machines, or student-based licensing. Quote\
If the school can buy 6 servers and however many workstations, it can come up with $100 for unlimited software with only update support. (IMNSHO)
\quote In all of the above cases, i'd really like a set of CDs/DVDs delivered to me. They don't have to be pretty, just functional. The main reason for this is that on current bandwidth prices, it would cost me a minimum of AU$168 to download a 3 x 700 Mb CD set. Quote\
I assume you would agree to pay shipping.
\quote I also think that for any non-profit use (home, education, etc.), it would not be too much to ask that we be able to use RHEL AS rather than the more limited ES or WS. It won't be too long before entry-level servers will come with Itanium or Opteron processors. Quote\
Except for the School, I believe it would be beneficial to Red Hat to do that. Just think, if I could keep a copy of the latest release of AS (I could download them) to learn from, I would better have the confidence to convince my clientele that it is better and more affordable than windows in the long run. (Pending their annual support fees after the first year, of course.)
\quote For scenarios 2 & 3 above, i have no problem with the updates being via mirror sites and being manual to apply (e.g. have to run apt-get on each machine or login to RHN demo with separate accounts). Paying so little, i don't expect to get a big share of Red Hat's bandwidth. Quote\
I would want an intermediate update program for my non-profit and low end edu purposes. I would want a utility that finds all the necessary updates for all my computers and downloads each RPM. Then I would want each computer to have a customized up2date that sees the new packages, checks to see if it needs one, and automatically installs it from where I downloaded them to. That would be cross beneficial to Red Hat and me as I have less work and RH only uses the bandwidth for one of my computers. All my other computers would get them from me.
\quote Note that my concern in all of these scenarios is the affordability for home & non-profit organisations. If it was for work, i'd just make the boss shell out for RHEL ES or WS. Quote\
I'd make my client shell out for what ever version is needed whether it is AS or ES. I am still not sure about WS. Sorry, but in my area Windose is still better supported software wise and too many people are locked in by special software that just isn't available on other machines. Besides, I can't see how it saves my client anything to uninstall XP from the computer he just bought and then $200 for another OS. (MS Monopoly practices at work).
I also add one more feature. A discount for us Value Added Resellers so we can profit on the sale or give our client a discount. Remember, we sell it, we install it and we are there to call tech support if it is needed. Plus, since we are more familiar with it, we would need to call tech support but once for one problem. After that we have the answer and won't have to call back on it. World wide, that would result in a number of phone techs not being needed which saves Red Hat more money.
Looking back on this I see the following between the two of us:
You and I each pay Red Hat $100 for AS as VARs. You pay postage and we both agree not to install the software anywhere but at home. Our first sale cost full retail additional sales are discounted $50 for ES and $200 for AS and $25 for WS.
I sell two ES accounts for $650, you sell ??? (I'll assume 4 for ES for this scenario) to your company. You sell 7 up2date contracts for $75 each, and sell your non-profit company a $100 support package.
What does Red Hat make? They make $2725 and probably only support two telephone calls. Additionally, what will we recommend to our next clients or when our clientele wants to expand?
Multiply this by 100 VARs and Red Hat just made 272,500 on a bunch of deadbeats wanting free software.
(jk about the deadbeats, but maybe that's how they look at us.)
Some of these "VARs" will be RHCEs and sell a lot more systems than you and I will, all because we got a copy of AS for $100. Since many sales can be handled on the internet, three VAR sales per day would cover the expenses before the VARs sell the first item. A contract agreement for the VAR not to distribute the product without paying RH their due fee would penalize us in court if we broke the contract, an incentive to behave. Would this make it easier to get it in the hands of those wanting to steal it? No one has ever stolen a Windows product with all its protection, why would they want to steal Linux? (like a copy of AS won't be on the Warez site within 48 hours of its release). It won't stop thieves from stealing a copy but some of them will be willing to pay the $100 for the updates and thus be or become legitimate.
Just my $.02 worth.
Buck
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 21:48:25 -0400, Buck wrote:
Just my $.02 worth.
Buck
What is written on the following pages also applies to public mailing-lists:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Please consider Netiquette. You reach more people when you do.
- -- Michael, who doesn't reply to top posts and complete quotes anymore.
From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Michael Schwendt Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 10:40 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: What price do you want?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 21:48:25 -0400, Buck wrote:
Just my $.02 worth.
Buck
What is written on the following pages also applies to public mailing-lists:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Please consider Netiquette. You reach more people when you do.
- -- Michael, who doesn't reply to top posts and complete quotes anymore.
Michael,
I appreciate your help. I read the FAQ and have only one problem. The quotes. I use Outlook 2002 and can set my quotes either to add the ">" quote marks or to leave the lines as originally typed. Unfortunately I can't select a particular email account to be different or I would do so. I need to forward certain email without the edited lines regularly so I can't afford to change it. Forgetting to reset it to clean edges causes severe consequences and lots and lots of extra work. While I would like to comply to this feature, I would also like to keep my sanity and not throw this monitor through the window. (Yes, I have! But I haven't made a habit of it....yet.)
If it means anything, I have started responding below the text.
Thanks again Buck
Buck wrote:
... If the school can buy 6 servers and however many workstations, it can come up with $100 for unlimited software with only update support. (IMNSHO)
They didn't buy them - they were donated. Nearly all of their hardware is. My home network isn't too far off that either. Only my workstation was bought new - the servers were 2nd hand purchases or built from hand-me-down parts (nothing over 300 MHz, either).
\quote In all of the above cases, i'd really like a set of CDs/DVDs delivered to me. They don't have to be pretty, just functional. The main reason for this is that on current bandwidth prices, it would cost me a minimum of AU$168 to download a 3 x 700 Mb CD set. Quote\
I assume you would agree to pay shipping.
3 CDs couldn't possibly cost $168, even with shipping. I'm not talking about boxed sets here, just updates for subscribed customers.
... I would want an intermediate update program for my non-profit and low end edu purposes. I would want a utility that finds all the necessary updates for all my computers and downloads each RPM. Then I would want each computer to have a customized up2date that sees the new packages, checks to see if it needs one, and automatically installs it from where I downloaded them to. That would be cross beneficial to Red Hat and me as I have less work and RH only uses the bandwidth for one of my computers. All my other computers would get them from me.
That's what RHN Enterprise is for. With the attached price, of course.
You can get a lot of the benefits of having RHN Enterprise by running squid and putting useNoSSLForPackages=1 in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date. Set them to use the same proxy server and all the packages get cached locally.
Speaking of which, it's time to write my next rant on useNoSSLForPackages (in a new thread, of course).
Paul Gear wrote:
That is the issue. I want an option for giving money to Red Hat:
- One boxed set per year for all my servers is an option.
- Paying for RHN service on RHL9 (or something with equivalent release
timeframes) is an option.
Paul,
If you can spend $40 per server for a box set, you might be interested in the $179 per server RHEL Workstation Basic Edition.
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/ws/
-- Aaron Bennett
On Sep 23, 2003, Paul Gear paul@gear.dyndns.org wrote:
My point was that some people need a longer release cycle without support.
You mean, without Security Errata? Or is that some kind of support you would want for the longer release cycle? Do you realize that, the longer the cycle, the more it costs to keep applying security errata to old releases? Who's going to pay for that cost?
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 20:36, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Sep 23, 2003, Paul Gear paul@gear.dyndns.org wrote:
My point was that some people need a longer release cycle without support.
You mean, without Security Errata? Or is that some kind of support you would want for the longer release cycle? Do you realize that, the longer the cycle, the more it costs to keep applying security errata to old releases? Who's going to pay for that cost?
I was waiting for this to come up. I for one see making updated packages for a given release as "support" but since the RH site discusses phone support as a a part of some offerings the term gets used with different meanings and contexts. This causes a fair bit of confusion. Perhaps as we embark on this exciting adventure of Fedora we should agree on what terms we are going to use for these two very different types of support. I see this as updates vs help but that is not too clear either.
I need updates but although I have purchased redhat boxed sets since before 5.0 and cause probably 100 other purchases through recommendations, I can't recall ever using phone support and the only interaction I have ever had with RedHat is through bugzilla.
Does anyone else see this as a definition of terms issue?
Bret
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 11:10:36PM -0500, Bret Hughes wrote:
I was waiting for this to come up. I for one see making updated packages for a given release as "support" but since the RH site discusses phone support as a a part of some offerings the term gets used with different meanings and contexts. This causes a fair bit of confusion. Perhaps as we embark on this exciting adventure of Fedora we should agree on what terms we are going to use for these two very different types of support. I see this as updates vs help but that is not too clear either.
Does anyone else see this as a definition of terms issue?
Red Hat uses two different terms here:
- support: ability to call/email our technical support staff with the expectation of receiving an answer or resolution to your problem (I'm trying to make the distinction from email this list, for example, and getting a response from a Red Hat employee)
- maintenance: package updates, be it for enhancement, bug fixes or security issues
With the Fedora Porject, we're going to have maintenance and no support. With RHEL, there's maintenance and support.
- jkt
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 06:47, Jay Turner wrote:
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 11:10:36PM -0500, Bret Hughes wrote:
I was waiting for this to come up. I for one see making updated packages for a given release as "support" but since the RH site discusses phone support as a a part of some offerings the term gets used with different meanings and contexts. This causes a fair bit of confusion. Perhaps as we embark on this exciting adventure of Fedora we should agree on what terms we are going to use for these two very different types of support. I see this as updates vs help but that is not too clear either.
Does anyone else see this as a definition of terms issue?
Red Hat uses two different terms here:
support: ability to call/email our technical support staff with the expectation of receiving an answer or resolution to your problem (I'm trying to make the distinction from email this list, for example, and getting a response from a Red Hat employee)
maintenance: package updates, be it for enhancement, bug fixes or security issues
With the Fedora Porject, we're going to have maintenance and no support. With RHEL, there's maintenance and support.
That helps, Thanks. Now that know the terms do we have afeel for how long maintenance will be provided for older versions of Fedora? Sorry if this has been answered but to me this is the crux of the issue and determines how often I need to reinstall.
Secondly, If RH decides that it will only provide maint. for say, 3 versions back, is there something that the developer community can do to take some of the work off Red Hat and enable the provision of maintenance for a longer period?
Bret
On 24 Sep 2003 09:51:20 -0500 Bret Hughes bhughes@elevating.com wrote:
That helps, Thanks. Now that know the terms do we have afeel for how long maintenance will be provided for older versions of Fedora? Sorry if this has been answered but to me this is the crux of the issue and determines how often I need to reinstall.
2-3 months after next release. So there will be maintenance releases for about half to three quarters of a year.
Secondly, If RH decides that it will only provide maint. for say, 3 versions back, is there something that the developer community can do to take some of the work off Red Hat and enable the provision of maintenance for a longer period?
Sure. but that's not going to satisfy the segment of people who want to have a guarantee from RedHat that the updates will be provided. For them Enterprise is the only choice.
Sean.
On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 08:28, Sean Estabrooks wrote:
On 24 Sep 2003 09:51:20 -0500 Bret Hughes bhughes@elevating.com wrote:
That helps, Thanks. Now that know the terms do we have afeel for how long maintenance will be provided for older versions of Fedora? Sorry if this has been answered but to me this is the crux of the issue and determines how often I need to reinstall.
2-3 months after next release. So there will be maintenance releases for about half to three quarters of a year.
I think the expectation now is that when, for example, a security patch for openssh is released upstream as a new version (with perhaps a few new features added), the new version will be incorporated into Fedora Core, as opposed to the traditional method of backporting the fix.
From the FAQ:
Q: What is the errata policy for The Fedora Project? A: Security updates, bugfix updates, and new feature updates will all be available, through Red Hat and third parties. Updates may be staged (first made available for public qualification, then later for general consumption) when appropriate. In drastic cases, we may remove a package from The Fedora Project if we judge that a necessary security update is too problematic/disruptive to the larger goals of the project. Availability of updates should not be misconstrued as support for anything other than continued development and innovation of the code base.
Red Hat will not be providing an SLA (Service Level Agreement) for resolution times for updates for The Fedora Project. Security updates will take priority. For packages maintained by external parties, Red Hat may respond to security holes by deprecating packages if the external maintainers do not provide updates in a reasonable time. Users who want support, or maintenance according to an SLA, may purchase the appropriate Red Hat Enterprise Linux product for their use.
Secondly, If RH decides that it will only provide maint. for say, 3 versions back, is there something that the developer community can do to take some of the work off Red Hat and enable the provision of maintenance for a longer period?
I think that's the whole point of the Fedora Project.
See this page, especially the bit about Fedora Legacy: http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html
Sure. but that's not going to satisfy the segment of people who want to have a guarantee from RedHat that the updates will be provided. For them Enterprise is the only choice.
Sean.
They should find like-minded potential customers and flood Red Hat's sales department with requests for some additional pricing/support tiers, and legitimate suggestions for what they're actually willing/able to pay for such guarantees.
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:50:29 -0700 Michael Knepher limbo@bluethingy.com wrote:
2-3 months after next release. So there will be maintenance releases for about half to three quarters of a year.
I think the expectation now is that when, for example, a security patch for openssh is released upstream as a new version (with perhaps a few new features added), the new version will be incorporated into Fedora Core, as opposed to the traditional method of backporting the fix.
Fedora Legacy is not maintained by RedHat. Anyone can release updates for as long as they want. No problems there. But RHN updates to the Fedora core are explicitly stated to be available for up to 3 months after the next release. But as mentioned in the FAQ there isn't even a SLA for this period of updates.
Secondly, If RH decides that it will only provide maint. for say, 3 versions back, is there something that the developer community can do to take some of the work off Red Hat and enable the provision of maintenance for a longer period?
I think that's the whole point of the Fedora Project.
See this page, especially the bit about Fedora Legacy: http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html
I'm not sure that's the entire point of the Fedora Project but the question from Bret was in regard to the objections people are raising in regard to this recent announcement. Nothing in the FAQ addresses the issues of a large segment of the people complaining. The simple fact is much of what people are looking for, is only available in Enterprise, not Fedora.
Sure. but that's not going to satisfy the segment of people who want to have a guarantee from RedHat that the updates will be provided. For them Enterprise is the only choice.
They should find like-minded potential customers and flood Red Hat's sales department with requests for some additional pricing/support tiers, and legitimate suggestions for what they're actually willing/able to pay for such guarantees.
Agreed, There is room in the RedHat product lineup for additional offerings. If RedHat can make a profit while not hurting its enterprise business in any way, then i'm sure they'd be eager to pursue such options.
Sean.
Am Mit, den 24.09.2003 schrieb Sean Estabrooks um 19:21:
Fedora Legacy is not maintained by RedHat. Anyone can release updates for as long as they want. No problems there. But RHN updates to the Fedora core are explicitly stated to be available for up to 3 months after the next release. But as mentioned in the FAQ there isn't even a SLA for this period of updates.
i haven't fully understood how the bugfixing/updating-process will work:
does red hat provide bugfixes for fedora core over rhn (for free?), and the bugfixes for the add-ons are provided via apt4rpm or yum for the external reps? or will all the bugfixes (provided by red hat or the 3rd-parties) be avaible over rhn?
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 21:21:48 +0200 Tim Kossack tim_kossack@web.de wrote:
Am Mit, den 24.09.2003 schrieb Sean Estabrooks um 19:21:
Fedora Legacy is not maintained by RedHat. Anyone can release updates for as long as they want. No problems there. But RHN updates to the Fedora core are explicitly stated to be available for up to 3 months after the next release. But as mentioned in the FAQ there isn't even a SLA for this period of updates.
i haven't fully understood how the bugfixing/updating-process will work:
does red hat provide bugfixes for fedora core over rhn (for free?), and the bugfixes for the add-ons are provided via apt4rpm or yum for the external reps? or will all the bugfixes (provided by red hat or the 3rd-parties) be avaible over rhn?
Here is how i interpret what is available on the Fedora web site:
Fedora Core updates _will_ be via RHN. These maintenance updates will only be available for 2 to 3 months after the following release of Fedora. That means you'd get 6 to 9 months of updating for each release from RHN. After that you'll have to rely on 3rd parties. In any case RedHat explicitly states there will NOT be a Service Level Agreement attached to _ANY_ package updates for Fedora whether in the maintenance period or not.
Check out http://fedora.redhat.com to make your own interpretation.
Sean.
Am Mit, den 24.09.2003 schrieb Sean Estabrooks um 21:47:
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 21:21:48 +0200 Tim Kossack tim_kossack@web.de wrote:
Am Mit, den 24.09.2003 schrieb Sean Estabrooks um 19:21:
Fedora Legacy is not maintained by RedHat. Anyone can release updates for as long as they want. No problems there. But RHN updates to the Fedora core are explicitly stated to be available for up to 3 months after the next release. But as mentioned in the FAQ there isn't even a SLA for this period of updates.
i haven't fully understood how the bugfixing/updating-process will work:
does red hat provide bugfixes for fedora core over rhn (for free?), and the bugfixes for the add-ons are provided via apt4rpm or yum for the external reps? or will all the bugfixes (provided by red hat or the 3rd-parties) be avaible over rhn?
Here is how i interpret what is available on the Fedora web site:
Fedora Core updates _will_ be via RHN. These maintenance updates will only be available for 2 to 3 months after the following release of Fedora. That means you'd get 6 to 9 months of updating for each release from RHN. After that you'll have to rely on 3rd parties. In any case RedHat explicitly states there will NOT be a Service Level Agreement attached to _ANY_ package updates for Fedora whether in the maintenance period or not.
just looked again at
http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html
according to that page, not just fedora core, but maybe also fedora extras are distributed over rhn. i say "maybe" because the exact phrasing goes: "RHN has the option to carry Fedora Extras content" don't know if this means that rhn will provide fedora extra when or if the resp. maintainer for a package requests to distribute it this way, or that the user(s) has to pay for that as an extra service.
however, it seems quite clear that fedora alternatives, fed. legacy and third party won't get distributed via rhn which is ok imo.
it would be nice if someone from red hat could clear this up, and it should even get stated on the website (in the faq?) more clearer (that means, if it's not just me having difficulties understandning it).
Dear Havoc, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Havoc Pennington" hp@redhat.com
There is no Red Hat Linux 10. There's the Fedora Project, with Fedora Core that contains a base Linux distribution; this is an open source project. Then there is Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is a product of Red Hat, Inc. RHEL has various versions (WS, ES, AS) for different applications.
If I'm hearing you correctly, Red Hat is no longer going to release a Linux distribution every (approx) 6 months. Red Hat will be a part of the Fedora project that will take over this function. And the Fedora project is sponsored as a separate organization under the Red Hat umbrella.
(I hope Warren is getting a good dot.com amount of money for this ;))
Based on http://fedora.redhat.com/, it looks like Red Hat will test - some - software for future versions of RHEL in the Fedora project. But other software for RHEL is likely to come from other sources.
Thanks, Mike Jang
On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 01:35:11PM -0400, MJang wrote:
[ To Havoc: ] If I'm hearing you correctly, Red Hat is no longer going to release a Linux distribution every (approx) 6 months. Red Hat will be a part of the Fedora project that will take over this function. And the Fedora project is sponsored as a separate organization under the Red Hat umbrella.
Here's my take on it: (I'm not a RedHat employee, so I can invent what I want, and you can choose to disregard my conclusions as hand waving... :-) )
RedHat isn't breaking even ($$$) by producing RedHat Linux. Not enough people are buying it, and the value of being able to release earlier to allow for a sort of gamma-testing before introducing the releases (or backported patches?) has not been considered valuable enough to make up the difference.
Something had to change. Either RedHat would stop producing RedHat Linux, and focus entirely on RedHat Enterprise Linux (noooo!), or RedHat would have to reduce the expense of maintaining RedHat Linux.
Since RedHat Linux is used by developers and enthusiasts, and these developers and enthusiasts are not paying for RedHat Linux (as a whole), why not allow these developers and enthusiasts to play a more active part, giving them the chance to get changes that they want in, while allowing RedHat to reduce its expenses related to RedHat Linux? This, it appears, was the birth of rhl.redhat.com. Sure, you could look at it as RedHat trying to offload work so that it can be more profitable, but you could also look at it as RedHat choosing to continue under a more open and profitable model, rather than closing down.
In the end, I don't see a problem with this model. We should all be honest about our expectations, and then critical of these expectations. Do we really expect RedHat to continue to operate at a deficit to offer us their product, without having to provide anything in return? Here is our chance to return the favour to RedHat, and at the same time, increase the input we have into the direction of RedHat Linux, which will have a greater chance of determining the direction that RedHat Enterprise Linux takes.
I didn't finish my take though: It looks as if Fedora approach RedHat and made a business case of some sort that resulted in an agreement that Fedora was already working similar to how RedHat Linux was going to work, and that the duplicated effort from the community would hurt both communities. Members would choose a community, rather than merging their efforts. By merging the products, the two communities are joined, allowing much more efficiency integration of work.
Personally, I like this a lot. I have been looking at Fedora as an alternative to RedHat for quite some time, as I prefer to use very recently released packages. The only reason I never switched, is because I have strong personal and business (my employer) reasons for staying with RedHat. Now, I get the best of both worlds.
So all in all, I'm quite happy with all of the recent events relating to RedHat/Fedora Linux. I think if we analyze our expectations without bias, this is the only conclusion we can draw (or least, that I can draw).
I look forward to doing my part...
Cheers, mark
On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 01:35:11PM -0400, MJang wrote:
If I'm hearing you correctly, Red Hat is no longer going to release a Linux distribution every (approx) 6 months. Red Hat will be a part of the Fedora project that will take over this function. And the Fedora project is sponsored as a separate organization under the Red Hat umbrella.
Well, I would word it differently, for what I think would be a more accurate connotation. Red Hat will, instead of releasing a Linux distribution approximately every 6 months essentially on its own, release a Linux distribution approximately 2-3 times each year as part of its contribution to and participation in a larger Fedora Project. This new distribution will be called "Fedora Core" to denote its position as part of this new, larger Fedora Project, of which Red Hat is a major component.
The difference between the two connotations is the strong, active role that Red Hat will be taking here. The name change is not intended to disassociate Red Hat from the project; instead it is to allow different trademark rules and to acknowledge the work of the larger community -- this is more than just Red Hat. It's expressing the larger participation of the community, and is not intended to imply a smaller participation from Red Hat.
FWIW, the default way of getting a package into Fedora Core will almost certainly include initially maintaining it as a part of Fedora Extras. Talking about this idea with Warren was part of what lead to the great merger...
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
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Hi, On 22 Sep 2003, Havoc Pennington wrote:
There is no Red Hat Linux 10. There's the Fedora Project, with Fedora Core that contains a base Linux distribution; this is an open source project. Then there is Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is a product of Red Hat, Inc. RHEL has various versions (WS, ES, AS) for different applications.
That sound really bad :-(
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
<snip>
So, people will use "Fedora" on desktops and some servers. It'll be available on internet, right?
Why will Red Hat will "not" support Fedora Core?
You probably want to be clear about what "support" means to you. Which row of the above table. Then we can answer your question better.
Well, I'd like to see RH 9 on that table to find out the best comparison.
"Downloads" : What does "source and binaries" mean? I hope there will be an installer ;)
What about updates? Will they be available from RHN? Who will maintain the packages? Recalling the openssh bug: Let's say I'm the maintainer of OpenSSH RPMS. I'm on holiday and a bug was released. Who will be responsible for that unclosed bug? So, shall we avoid using fedora on servers?
I do not really care telephone "support" from Red Hat. I've been using only Red Hat since I've first met with Linux (Red Hat 6.1) and never needed a telephone/e-mail support. The reason I'm now offering Red Hat is the power I feel behind me, "Red Hat" name. Now, that power is lost. RHL is dead. Red Hat says "Fedora is a thing like Mozilla, Linux Kernel, etc.". I myself expected much more from that. Was that so simple?
Anyway, let me relax and see what will happen. Maybe Fedora will be an excellent distribution; but I'm in doubt now.
BTW, who are Fedora? Are they a company? (I could not find something from www.fedora.us/index-main.html). What if they will give up this project?
I'll always prefer RH Enterprise Linux for very big projects, but I'm really confused about using RH on desktop and small servers.
Regards and best wishes, - -- Devrim GUNDUZ devrim@gunduz.org devrim.gunduz@linux.org.tr http://www.tdmsoft.com http://www.gunduz.org
Devrim GUNDUZ (devrim@gunduz.org) said:
Red Hat will be doing a lot of development and other work on the Fedora Project, but it's not a product that you can buy from us. We're working on the Fedora Project in the same way that we work on other projects such as Mozilla or the Linux kernel.
<snip>
So, people will use "Fedora" on desktops and some servers. It'll be available on internet, right?
It's intended for use by developers, linux enthusiasts, etc. It will be freely availble without any use restrictions specifically on it.
"Downloads" : What does "source and binaries" mean? I hope there will be an installer ;)
The OS releases will be available via the normal release mechanisms, such as ISO images or FTP-able trees.
What about updates? Will they be available from RHN?
They will be available via FTP/etc., and also via RHN.
Who will maintain the packages?
The package maintainer. :)
Recalling the openssh bug: Let's say I'm the maintainer of OpenSSH RPMS. I'm on holiday and a bug was released. Who will be responsible for that unclosed bug?
Technically, no one else will be specifically responsible, unless you as package maintainer want to designate someone while you're unavailable. (Note that most all packages that are also included in RHEL will have a Red Hat person following development as well.)
Obviously, for cases like OpenSSH, project leadership can step in and kick someone to do updates when they're critically necessary; it would be the responsible thing to do, and I really don't think we'll have a shortage of people available to do it, both inside and outside Red Hat.
Bill
Hi All,
An open question to the fedora lists, will there be a fedora-developer list at some point? It seems the existing lists are currently flooded with a lot of trafic, which might make it hard to participate in development related discussions, as they might get lost in the high volumes.
Personally i am quite fond of the gnome lists model, a list per topic (desktop, nautilus, translations, etc), plus a list (gnome-hackers@) which is read only accept for the project developers. Ofcource outside posts can still reach this list, but they will be moderated first.
An active and high volume generating community is a great thing to have, but it would be great to have a low trafic list where one could bounce actual ideas & patches around
Kind regards & the very best with getting the fedora project off the ground!
-- Chris Chabot
Michael K. Johnson wrote:
Red Hat and Fedora Linux are pleased to announce an alignment of their mutually complementary core proficiencies leveraging them synergistically in the creation of the Fedora Project, a paradigm shift for Linux technology development and rolling early deployment models.
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 18:47, Chris Chabot wrote:
An open question to the fedora lists, will there be a fedora-developer list at some point?
You mean fedora-devel-list? Yes, it's there now. Feel free to politely remind people to stay on-topic.
It seems the existing lists are currently flooded with a lot of trafic, which might make it hard to participate in development related discussions, as they might get lost in the high volumes.
Crossposting to all 4 lists isn't going to help. :-P
Havoc
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