Hi All,
I've looked around, read most of the archives on this list & have seen the topic sort of mentioned, but not directly... so here goes:
I've got about 120 machines (servers & workstations) running 7.3 and 9. I was going to roll RH9 out department-wide, but then realized that it's end-of-life is scheduled for April 2004, which is smack-dab in the middle of the semester.
I've recently been asked/told to limit OS releases to every 2 years. I feel that this is fair.
I've looked into RHEL; my "higher-ups" are VERY squeamish about paying for anything. I'm contemplating switching to another distribution with longer life-cycles, but I'm very comfy with RHL, and don't want to switch.
(finally) My question is this: What is the anticipated life-cycle for Fedora releases? I know that there will be core updates every four months - by 'core' I gather this means kernel, gcc, glib, X, etc... but how long will a core release last - is it based on popularity/stability? I've seen lots of talk about other companies that provide support for end-of-life RH releases, and can assume that it will continue with Fedora, but for a university with a $50M+ defeceit this year, paying is not an option.
Any thoughts/views would be greatly appreciated -
Cheers & Thanks! Erik.
Erik Williamson wrote:
I've recently been asked/told to limit OS releases to every 2 years. I feel that this is fair.
2 years? then Debian is for you. I don't know others that they offer 2 years of lifetime _free_
(finally) My question is this: What is the anticipated life-cycle for Fedora releases? I know that there will be core updates every four
Fedora lifetime is from 6 to 9 *months* http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
I would like to see an extension of 6 months more, more or less. At least for _base_(kernel....) components.
Fedora lifetime is from 6 to 9 *months* http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
I would like to see an extension of 6 months more, more or less. At least for _base_(kernel....) components.
Whoa! Am I reading this correctly? Approximately nine months after a version is released, apt/yum/up2date will stop working for a release? Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Ben
On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 17:31, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Fedora lifetime is from 6 to 9 *months* http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
I would like to see an extension of 6 months more, more or less. At least for _base_(kernel....) components.
Whoa! Am I reading this correctly? Approximately nine months after a version is released, apt/yum/up2date will stop working for a release? Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
1) Read the FAQ and website. 2) If you NEED long term stability then you are going to have to pay for it. You can either pay Red Hat for RHEL, pay an outside contractor to maintain packages for 2 year length of time, or pay people inside your company to maintain those packages. 3) If you dont really NEED long term stability you can hope that there will be enough interest in Fedora Legacy so that older releases will be maintained by people. However those will be volunteers and may drop a package at any time.
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
In the end, there is no such thing as a free lunch/coke/os. The first one might seem free, but eventually its gonna cost ya.
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration potentially twice a year. I think you will find very few orgs willing to deploy Fedora under those conditions, and even fewer able to justify paying for RHEL being that it is quite expensive compared to other options.
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration potentially twice a year. I think you will find very few orgs willing to deploy Fedora under those conditions, and even fewer able to justify paying for RHEL being that it is quite expensive compared to other options.
That's our point. When you deploy on hundreds of servers, like many of the consortium members do, there's no chance in heck that we're going to pay a minimum of $179 (on up to $2500 IIRC) *PER* server. I'd much prefer to pool resources and distribute the cost.
-Chuck
Chuck Wolber wrote:
That's our point. When you deploy on hundreds of servers, like many of the consortium members do, there's no chance in heck that we're going to pay a minimum of $179 (on up to $2500 IIRC) *PER* server. I'd much prefer to pool resources and distribute the cost.
RH offers discounts to big quantities of licenses: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-September/msg00424.html
That's our point. When you deploy on hundreds of servers, like many of the consortium members do, there's no chance in heck that we're going to pay a minimum of $179 (on up to $2500 IIRC) *PER* server. I'd much prefer to pool resources and distribute the cost.
RH offers discounts to big quantities of licenses: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-September/msg00424.html
That speaks to both sides of the argument. Quite honestly, that deal looks really tempting *IF* I actually needed RHWS. What I do need is a stable production OS (which I'm sure RHWS could be tweaked to do if I had the time [1]). I understand, RedHat needs to pay the bills. I personally think they're going about it the wrong way. I'd be happy to pay $1000 for a copy of RHEL that I can deploy to *ONLY* our own customers (with no restriction on the number of customers) without the expectation of *ANY* support from RedHat. I'd even be happy to pay a nominal fee (perhaps $25 or so per month) so I can rsync my own updates archive to deploy to said customers.
-Chuck
[1] This begs the question, if you don't have the time to tweak RHWS, then how do you have the time to participate in rh-consortium? My response: One has a future, the other doesn't. I'm just placing my effort where I belive it will do the most good.
On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 05:41:57PM -0700, Chuck Wolber wrote:
[1] This begs the question, if you don't have the time to tweak RHWS, then how do you have the time to participate in rh-consortium? My response: One
I can't imagine installing a large base of any Unix without tweaking the distribution for your corporation's needs first.
We do it with HP/UX, we do it with Solaris, we do it with Linux, and out PC admins even do it to MS operating systems.
Does Fedora have a bug-tracking system? I would hope for a Bugzilla or similar to organize feedback.
Also, how many core developers do you have? Has RedHat loaned you any, etc.
Federico
Rocks Cluster Group, San Diego Supercomputing Center, CA
On Tuesday, September 30, 2003, at 08:38 PM, Federico Sacerdoti wrote:
Does Fedora have a bug-tracking system? I would hope for a Bugzilla or similar to organize feedback.
Fedora's Bugzilla is the same place as the rest of Red Hat's at http://bugzilla.redhat.com Simply logon and choose "Fedora Core" as the product.
As to your second question, there are Red Hat developers assigned to Fedora. I'm sure one of them will be able to tell you exactly how many are assigned. HTH,
-Sean
On Wed, 2003-10-01 at 00:01, Sean Earp wrote:
As to your second question, there are Red Hat developers assigned to Fedora. I'm sure one of them will be able to tell you exactly how many are assigned.
It doesn't really work that way. It's more like people own technical areas and cover them in both Fedora Project and RHEL. For example, I own a bunch of GNOME stuff in both of those.
Havoc
On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 18:11, Chuck Wolber wrote:
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration potentially twice a year. I think you will find very few orgs willing to deploy Fedora under those conditions, and even fewer able to justify paying for RHEL being that it is quite expensive compared to other options.
That's our point. When you deploy on hundreds of servers, like many of the consortium members do, there's no chance in heck that we're going to pay a minimum of $179 (on up to $2500 IIRC) *PER* server. I'd much prefer to pool resources and distribute the cost.
Well if you need no support from RH ....
-> Buy as many licenses as you feel you can, you can even use these on your priority production machines for the support aspect -> Download the SRPMS[1] -> Use an installed system to build the SRPMS into a distro, since they are GPLed.[2] -> Deploy the GPL version to your other systems, "branding" it a "Common Operating Environment"
There is a project already underway on making a system to build an installable release from the SRPMS.
To me, this is the best of both worlds for those unable/unwilling to negotiate w/RH over unit pricing. You can spend what you feel you should, pay for some support, and have the rest of your systems supported by you, yet running a longer term install.
Another alternative is to not upgrade each and avery time Fedora Core is released. Especially if binary compat. is/is not broken in *every* release.
Cheers, Bill
[1] Funny (in a good way) thing, RH goes *beyond* the GPL requirements by making these available. Outside of stripping those, there is no getting around needing to pay a license fee for those bits.
[2] I am assuming that like AS2.x WS/ES contain licensed third party binaries
On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 06:23 AM, Bill Anderson wrote:
-> Download the SRPMS[1]
[1] Funny (in a good way) thing, RH goes *beyond* the GPL requirements by making these available. Outside of stripping those, there is no getting around needing to pay a license fee for those bits.
What percentage of the RPM spec files are GPL'd? As I understand it, a SRPM is:
1. Source tarball 2. Patches 3. Spec file.
Of course 1, 2 must be disclosed publicly by the legal definition of GPL. The spec file is interesting, if it was derived from one provided by the package authors (not redhat) then it must be dislosed. If it was originally GPL'd by redhat in an earlier release, and a derivation is used in the current RHEL product, it must be disclosed (you cant un-GPL your software). There may be some other cases with a different outcome.
Federico
Rocks Cluster Group, San Diego Supercomputing Center, CA
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 11:23, Federico Sacerdoti wrote:
On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 06:23 AM, Bill Anderson wrote:
-> Download the SRPMS[1]
[1] Funny (in a good way) thing, RH goes *beyond* the GPL requirements by making these available. Outside of stripping those, there is no getting around needing to pay a license fee for those bits.
What percentage of the RPM spec files are GPL'd? As I understand it, a SRPM is:
100%, if the software they are distributed for and with is GPLed.
Red Herring, IMO.
David Chait wrote:
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration
because its development cycle is looooonger, exactly 2 years or sometimes more. Then it's natural and easy for Debian to have longer lifetimes.
On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 17:50, David Chait wrote:
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration
While this is true in the past, it had been said that newer Debian release cycles would go to 6-12 month cycles. I thought when asked the security team said that would not change how long they would maintain software after a new release. [This was from last year or so...]
On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 19:50, David Chait wrote:
I dont expect that this will be any different for any of the Linux companies and volunteer orgs (Debian) in the coming years. Everytime there is a new Debian, the security volunteers say they will only maintain the old release for 6 months and there is great wailing and nashing of teeth about how shitty Debian is.
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration potentially twice a year. I think you will find very few orgs willing to
That's a lot more thru accident than design. ~,^ The Debian folks would love to release more often, if they could manage to bring together
10,000 packages and >3,000 packagers to make a timely release.
(Which I fear Fedora may come to be if Red Hat doesn't keep a *very* strict policy about packages going into Core vs. Extras.)
On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 04:50:28PM -0700, David Chait wrote:
The difference of course is, Debian offers a stable release life of over 2 years prior. That is hardly as aggravating as making a major migration potentially twice a year. I think you will find very few orgs willing to deploy Fedora under those conditions, and even fewer able to justify paying for RHEL being that it is quite expensive compared to other options.
I brought this switch up at work yesterday. My customer (the head of the department using Linux) said, "No big deal, we're really saving our money on the hardware, paying for the OS is a drop in the bucket. Besides the users love Linux on xw4100's compared to HP/UX on C3700's".
I was surprised, especially considering how tight money has been at work lately...
Of course, now I have to develop an image based on RHEL 3 when it comes out...
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
- If you NEED long term stability then you are going to have to pay for
it. You can either pay Red Hat for RHEL, pay an outside contractor to maintain packages for 2 year length of time, or pay people inside your company to maintain those packages.
Or join the rh-consortium and help pool the necessary resources to provide that support. Mailing list here:
http://www.quantumlinux.com/mailman/listinfo/rh-consortium
- If you dont really NEED long term stability you can hope that there
will be enough interest in Fedora Legacy so that older releases will be maintained by people. However those will be volunteers and may drop a package at any time.
We're keeping a close eye on Fedora Legacy. If it does what we need, then we're home free. If not, then that's what we're doing this for.
-Chuck
Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Fedora lifetime is from 6 to 9 *months* http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
I would like to see an extension of 6 months more, more or less. At least for _base_(kernel....) components.
Whoa! Am I reading this correctly? Approximately nine months after a version is released, apt/yum/up2date will stop working for a release? Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
whith Fedora too, 6-9 months ;-)
There is people talking about to create an community project, out of Red Hat/Fedora Core, to extend lifetime. But there is no warranties, only people goodwill.
On Sep 30, 2003, "Benjamin J. Weiss" benjamin@Weiss.name wrote:
Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
You may want to convince him to join the Fedora Legacy project. Or, if he wants something supported by Red Hat for a longer period, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Which came at a cost. Who paid for that?
Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
You may want to convince him to join the Fedora Legacy project. Or, if he wants something supported by Red Hat for a longer period, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Which came at a cost. Who paid for that?
We did, in a way.
We ran RHL for small servers (such as our static web server) and RHEL for serious servers (RHAS 2.1 with Oracle 9i for our database server.)
The *only* reason that my boss went with RHEL was because I was able to show him with RHL on small servers that it was stable and powerful.
There is no way that we're gonna be able to pay for RHEL for all of the small servers that we maintain.
Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of True64 and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and my boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
Damnit, I love RH and *really* don't like Solaris. *sigh*
I know that RH is trying to stay profitable. I understand and wish them the best. They've done an *outstanding* job. I just hope and pray that they haven't shot themselves in the foot here. I know that we will be trying to find an alternative before up2date stops working for RH9. :(
Ben
Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
...
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Which came at a cost. Who paid for that?
We did, in a way.
And many of us would still be happy to...
... Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of True64 and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and my boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
Damnit, I love RH and *really* don't like Solaris. *sigh*
I know that RH is trying to stay profitable. I understand and wish them the best. They've done an *outstanding* job. I just hope and pray that they haven't shot themselves in the foot here. I know that we will be trying to find an alternative before up2date stops working for RH9. :(
That is a very interesting observation. Is RH aware that they have positioned themselves thus in the market?
If i were Sun, i'd be taking a big marketing opportunity to throw a few extras into their solution (like clustering software, etc.) show how Solaris is cheaper than Linux and thumb their nose at everyone and say "We were right all along".
Paul "Jef Spaleta has too many nicknames" Gear http://paulgear.webhop.net
On Wednesday 01 Oct 2003 1:43 am, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
You may want to convince him to join the Fedora Legacy project. Or, if he wants something supported by Red Hat for a longer period, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Which came at a cost. Who paid for that?
We did, in a way.
We ran RHL for small servers (such as our static web server) and RHEL for serious servers (RHAS 2.1 with Oracle 9i for our database server.)
The *only* reason that my boss went with RHEL was because I was able to show him with RHL on small servers that it was stable and powerful.
There is no way that we're gonna be able to pay for RHEL for all of the small servers that we maintain.
Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of True64 and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and my boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
Damnit, I love RH and *really* don't like Solaris. *sigh*
I know that RH is trying to stay profitable. I understand and wish them the best. They've done an *outstanding* job. I just hope and pray that they haven't shot themselves in the foot here. I know that we will be trying to find an alternative before up2date stops working for RH9. :(
Ben
If redhat can only stay solvent by charging $349 for there stable linux (remember thats the "cheap" version isn't AS > $1000) I find it very worrying for the competitiveness of Linux generally. In the short term I think they will make more money from people who will find it too costly to move to another OS but in the longer term I think they will lose a lot of business.
Dave.
Red Hat does not have to charge their prices to stay solvent. Their only business need is to increase productivity and profit. It is now a publicly traded company and has a responsibility to the stock holders (whether or not I like it). As for losing business, there are many times in which losing customers is more profitable than keeping them. I started my home based business servicing home computers on-site at a low rate. After a while, I was constantly driving, working or talking on the phone. I eventually tripled my rates, dropped most of my home support and retained 3 commercial customers. Even though I lost my one biggest account, I only needed to work about 1 or two days a week and my "keep" pay was the same as when I was busting my @$$ all week long. Likewise, Red Hat is probably catering to their "million-dollar" accounts that require less overhead to service and dropping their customers that might be making a profit, but costs them more to service and support. Sure, they may lose 25% of their "business" but what remains will be much more profitable leaving them with more time and resources to service their contracts, improve their product and work with Fedora.
Well, that's my $.02 (or less) worth.
Really, it's just business.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of David Holden Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 5:17 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Benjamin J. Weiss; Alexandre Oliva Cc: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator
On Wednesday 01 Oct 2003 1:43 am, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
If redhat can only stay solvent by charging $349 for there stable linux (remember thats the "cheap" version isn't AS > $1000) I find it very worrying for the competitiveness of Linux generally. In the short term I think they will make more money from people who will find it too costly to move to another OS but in the longer term I think they will lose a lot of business.
Dave.
On Wednesday 01 Oct 2003 5:51 pm, Buck wrote:
Red Hat does not have to charge their prices to stay solvent. Their only business need is to increase productivity and profit. It is now a publicly traded company and has a responsibility to the stock holders (whether or not I like it). As for losing business, there are many times in which losing customers is more profitable than keeping them. I started my home based business servicing home computers on-site at a low rate. After a while, I was constantly driving, working or talking on the phone. I eventually tripled my rates, dropped most of my home support and retained 3 commercial customers. Even though I lost my one biggest account, I only needed to work about 1 or two days a week and my "keep" pay was the same as when I was busting my @$$ all week long. Likewise, Red Hat is probably catering to their "million-dollar" accounts that require less overhead to service and dropping their customers that might be making a profit, but costs them more to service and support. Sure, they may lose 25% of their "business" but what remains will be much more profitable leaving them with more time and resources to service their contracts, improve their product and work with Fedora.
Well, that's my $.02 (or less) worth.
Really, it's just business.
Buck
All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Dave.
Quoting David Holden dh@iucr.org:
All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Er, I have to disagree because I think you're making some assumptions that are incorrect.
You see, Microsoft's "shrink wrapped" products _are_ (and _always_ have been) currently defnined by its enterprise customers, and large volume sales. The fact that they also sell on the retail shelves is just to further that volume even more. But the small volume consumers have _no_say_ in the product's design, simply because they are not worth Microsoft's bother from a financial perspective.
Red Hat is basically moving to this same model with a twist. Like Microsoft, it let's its "shrink wrapped" products be defined by its enterprise customers, because it's not worth it to spend money to accomodate the small guy. But unlike Microsoft, they give the community basically everything in their "shrink wrapped" products. That way the smaller volume community has a way to define its products into what _they_ want as well.
I think Red Hat has got the "best of both worlds" down from a business and consumer standpoint.
The only fear I have is this. I just hope the "QA/integration testing" that I am used to in Red Hat Linux is still available in Fedora Linux, without suffering the "tag lag" like we see with Debian Stable.
I.e., I used to find Red Hat Linux the best of both QA/integration testing and half-way recent/current packages. In the Debian world, the two see to be mutually exclusive -- Stable = former, Testing = latter.
And, of course, Mandrake is totally the latter, nothing of the former. ;-ppp
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:05 pm, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting David Holden dh@iucr.org:
All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Er, I have to disagree because I think you're making some assumptions that are incorrect.
You see, Microsoft's "shrink wrapped" products _are_ (and _always_ have been) currently defnined by its enterprise customers, and large volume sales. The fact that they also sell on the retail shelves is just to further that volume even more. But the small volume consumers have _no_say_ in the product's design, simply because they are not worth Microsoft's bother from a financial perspective.
Red Hat is basically moving to this same model with a twist. Like Microsoft, it let's its "shrink wrapped" products be defined by its enterprise customers, because it's not worth it to spend money to accomodate the small guy. But unlike Microsoft, they give the community basically everything in their "shrink wrapped" products. That way the smaller volume community has a way to define its products into what _they_ want as well.
I think Red Hat has got the "best of both worlds" down from a business and consumer standpoint.
I agree about letting the "shrink wrapped" product be defined by the enterprise customer, but it seems to me that Redhat will not have a "skrink wrapped product" for the small business because they are not going to provide a "stable" low priced product with security updates for the small business.
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version, or will have have to say to my boss if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for system/per year.
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3 years use of that OS and security updates are *free*.
(Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Dave.
Quoting David Holden dh@iucr.org:
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version, or will have have to say to my boss if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for system/per year.
First off, the last time I checked, RHEL WS is $179/year (or are you talking about ES?).
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3 years use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a $99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
*BUT* if you keep your Fedora Core current to at least 6 months, possibly a year (if I'm reading the details correctly), you _do_ have such updates.
If you need 1-7 years, then you need to purchase a product that will support the vendor who does it, given the volume they sell at.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:44, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting David Holden dh@iucr.org:
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3 years use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a $99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
That presumes of course that MS can manage to get it right...so that there is actually some value behind the 'service'....
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5085251.html
Trustworthy Computing.....Round 2?
Marc
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:44 pm, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting David Holden dh@iucr.org:
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version, or will have have to say to my boss if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for system/per year.
First off, the last time I checked, RHEL WS is $179/year (or are you talking about ES?).
yes ES.
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3 years use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a $99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
Of course which is back to my original post, about the cost of doing this, assuming the WS edition (>3x179) again $99-199.
*BUT* if you keep your Fedora Core current to at least 6 months, possibly a year (if I'm reading the details correctly), you _do_ have such updates.
Yes this is find if keeping Fedora core current doesn't break important things that users are used to, e.g. kde desktop settings etc..
If you need 1-7 years, then you need to purchase a product that will support the vendor who does it, given the volume they sell at.
Of course and again back to my original post,
Dave
David Holden said: [snip]
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3
years
use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a $99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
Of course which is back to my original post, about the cost of doing this, assuming the WS edition (>3x179) again $99-199.
Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Microsoft's OSes in the $99-199 range are desktop platforms, so they only thing they can compare to is RHEL WS. Even that is a stretch because WS includes HTTPd and NFS servers. And an office suite. And a full development environment. Do I need to continue?
If you want to compare anything to RHEL ES, then you need to start looking at Microsoft's Server OSes. Of course ES includes a proxy server, a NNTP server, an IMAP server, most likely a couple SQL servers, etc.
In the end if you are trying to determine what to buy just based on price, you have no real applications that require one or the other. As someone else on the list pointed out the price of the OS in a number of cases is a small part of the total cost. More often then not the applications dictate the OS, not the cost.
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 6:51 pm, William Hooper wrote:
David Holden said: [snip]
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3
years
use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a $99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
Of course which is back to my original post, about the cost of doing this, assuming the WS edition (>3x179) again $99-199.
Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Microsoft's OSes in the $99-199 range are desktop platforms, so they only thing they can compare to is RHEL WS. Even that is a stretch because WS includes HTTPd and NFS servers. And an office suite. And a full development environment. Do I need to continue?
If you want to compare anything to RHEL ES, then you need to start looking at Microsoft's Server OSes. Of course ES includes a proxy server, a NNTP server, an IMAP server, most likely a couple SQL servers, etc.
In the end if you are trying to determine what to buy just based on price, you have no real applications that require one or the other. As someone else on the list pointed out the price of the OS in a number of cases is a small part of the total cost. More often then not the applications dictate the OS, not the cost.
I agree with this, and personally there is no way I would use M$ product, but the point is that we are not comparing apples with apples, Microsoft has a great deal of inertia and mind share on its side with "non-techical" managers so to get them to move linux has to be a way better value proposition. After a great deal of debate I managed to persuade my bosses that the "old redhat" proposition ($60/year 2-3year security updates) was worth giving up the windows desktop (Office/Photoshop/IE/Outlook..all the things he knows well) for Linux.
Then redhat suddenly says "no, its now $180/year and $345/year for a server version". So the cost has now tripled on the desktop and x6 on the server. This still might be comparable even somewhat better value that Windows but its blown a big hole in one of my arguments for moving to linux, I suspect that there are quite a few small businesses who have not already made the jump won't be on these prices.
Dave.
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of David Holden Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 5:30 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; William Hooper Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- there are a lot of variables here ...
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 6:51 pm, William Hooper wrote:
David Holden said: [snip]
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3
years
use of that OS and security updates are *free*. (Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Secondly, Microsoft has the volume to sustain security updates on a
$99-199 product. Red Hat does not.
Microsoft also has megabucks (or is it gigabucks?) from their other products and especially servers. Realize this: MS removed certain features and abilities from Windows 95 as a "security" measure to protect NT from hackers. Linux hackers had unlocked doors.
Buck
David Holden said: [snip]
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version,
Repeat after me, Fedora is not Red Hat. If the Fedora Legacy project can get you 2-3 years then it will be the Fedora Legacy project doing it, not Red Hat.
or will have have to say to my boss if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for system/per year.
IIRC your $345 also gets you any new versions of RHEL that comes out. I would also ask if you really need that many copies of ES or would WS do for most of it (I mean heck, it has Apache even).
You also have the choice of finding a third party to provide you support. I've seen on these lists a couple of places that are offering to support Valhalla after Red Hat EOLs it.
Quoting William Hooper whooperhsd3@earthlink.net:
IIRC your $345 also gets you any new versions of RHEL that comes out.
Basic economies of scale. $179 and $345 for WS and ES (I assume?) match up well against Microsoft's products, recurring support costs, etc... given their volume.
I would also ask if you really need that many copies of ES or would WS do for most of it (I mean heck, it has Apache even).
That's my attitude. If I just needed a 5-7 year supported "core," ES and WS are perfect as long as the 3rd party Fedora SRPMS will build on it. WS is only $179/year and will do my desktop's nicely.
If I need a lot of goodies on a server, especially NFS/SMB clustering, etc..., I'll want to by AS for the broad support.
You also have the choice of finding a third party to provide you support. I've seen on these lists a couple of places that are offering to support Valhalla after Red Hat EOLs it.
I'm sure you'll see this happen with Fedora "Core" releases as well. You'll pay for it, but _you_ have the option of _when_ you want to "stay back" or "stay current."
The GPL doesn't guarantee free of cost. Stallman knows this better than most of us. But the GPL _does_ guarantee you won't be gouged at the same time. Any vendor who attempts to do so will cut its own throat as competitors will offer a way out.
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:48 pm, William Hooper wrote:
David Holden said: [snip]
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version,
Repeat after me, Fedora is not Red Hat. If the Fedora Legacy project can get you 2-3 years then it will be the Fedora Legacy project doing it, not Red Hat.
I've no need to repeat this, I'm well aware of the difference thanks. The above was making precisely the point that redhat won't be providing security updates to Fedora.
or will have have to say to my boss if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for system/per year.
IIRC your $345 also gets you any new versions of RHEL that comes out. I would also ask if you really need that many copies of ES or would WS do for most of it (I mean heck, it has Apache even).
This is a good and certainly $179 is better that $345
You also have the choice of finding a third party to provide you support. I've seen on these lists a couple of places that are offering to support Valhalla after Red Hat EOLs it.
Yes this is back to my post about how competitive linux, re cost.
Dave.
<snip>
You also have the choice of finding a third party to provide you support. I've seen on these lists a couple of places that are offering to support Valhalla after Red Hat EOLs it.
Yes this is back to my post about how competitive linux, re cost.
Dave.
And I saw an announcement from Suse that they are releasing Suse 9 soon, and it will have the 2.6 kernel besides the 2.4 kernel for those who want to check it out. Plus support for the AMD 64.
Frankly, I started with Red Hat with 6.2 and liked it. I also liked KDE, um, let's not start a war here, just my preference. I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by I adapted. Now they are dumping the desktop and going to the server. Fine, I have all my RH servers here, but on the desktop, I may be looking back to Suse. I had tried it on a spare PC once and it worked well. Looks like I have to pull out my old PCs again and load Mandrake and Suse so that I can evaluate them. Frankly, I feel that Red Hat is becoming the Linux version of MS in dictating to you. I remember when going to Linux meant choice, so I will exercise my right of choice and find another distro. I will still support Red Hat on the server side, but more and more I am leaning elsewhere for the desktop. Ed Croft, RHCE
Quoting Edward Croft ecroft@openratings.com:
I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by I adapted.
Huh? All BlueCurve is, is a theme, icon and default application set for each KDE and GNOME. You still have _full_ KDE and GNOME. I don't see your point at all. In fact, I don't think you do either.
Now they are dumping the desktop and going to the server.
Huh? What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS then?
Fine, I have all my RH servers here, but on the desktop, I may be looking back to Suse. I had tried it on a spare PC once and it worked well. Looks like I have to pull out my old PCs again and load Mandrake and Suse so that I can evaluate them.
Mandrake is like Debian Unstable on a bad day. But that's just me. ;-ppp
SuSE offers similar to Red Hat now. They offer their "consumer" Personal/Professional as well as their "Enterprise" series.
The _difference_ between Red Hat and SuSE, other than the fact that Red Hat is no longer shrink wrapping its "consumer" versions (hence Fedora) is that Red Hat is GPL-anal and SuSE is _not_.
So if you're making a "big deal" about Red Hat's recent moves, I don't think SuSE offers a compelling "alternative" based on your own criteria. I'm not saying SuSE is "worse" than Red Hat, I'm just saying based on _your_logic_, they are "not better."
As such, I can only deduce this is a "I hate #1" attitude. That is not fair to Red Hat just as it is not fair to Microsoft when people do the same. There are legitimate complains to make of Red Hat, just like there are for Microsoft (actually, a crapload for the latter in comparison), but I do not see this as one of those. Sorry.
Frankly, I feel that Red Hat is becoming the Linux version of MS in dictating to you.
I don't know so much if it is "dictating," but if you mean that Red Hat is following Microsoft's attitude of "volume focus, enterprise focus," yes, I agree. That's just smart business. Dislike them for it, but I see nothing "unethical" about it.
[ NOTE: There are far more "unethical" things to pick on in the case of Microsoft. But don't beat them up for just focusing on volue. Again, that's just smart business. So Red Hat's a follower ... not the first, not the last. ]
But unlike Microsoft, or even SuSE and many other UnitedLinux distros, Red Hat is _still_ "GPL-anal." Everything Red Hat does is basically GPL. All the projects the start, support and otherwise put at the _cornerstone_ of their product. Can't say the same for SuSE nor most of the UnitedLinux partners, from the Installer to their various, product-only nick-nacks.
I remember when going to Linux meant choice,
And Red Hat has taken away "choice"?
All I've seen is that they've made some hard decisions, but have instigated what it believes are more choices.
The only thing they are taking away is the "free lunch." GPL is Freedom, not Free-of-Cost.
so I will exercise my right of choice and find another distro.
And you have that choice, yes.
How Red Hat fits either in or out of that choice, versus yesterday, today or the future, I have not seen you make that point yet, which you seem you must make.
Again, I am confused.
I will still support Red Hat on the server side,
Via Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS? ES? Or Fedora Linux?
but more and more I am leaning elsewhere for the desktop.
So you will look at neither Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS nor Fedora Linux for the desktop?
I'm a bit confused on your logic.
Ed Croft, RHCE
Bryan J. Smith Linux+, LPIC-2, RHCE(9)
Bryan J. Smith Linux+, LPIC-2, RHCE(9)
Bryan, this was a well written response. However, it would be much better had you appended the term "BOOYAH!" at the end of your message.
;)
Quoting Michael Lee Yohe michael.yohe@us.army.mil:
Bryan, this was a well written response.
It looks like I just caught someone having a semi-brain fart on a few things (based on an off-list correspondence). And as far as brain fart goes, I think I'll best all of you in both the quantity and quality departments, so you better get used to writing even better ones when I have my farts. They don't call me "TheBS" for 'nothin.
However, it would be much better had you appended the term "BOOYAH!" at the end of your message.
Naah. I'm already providing more entertainment than substance. I'm a total mooch. I don't contribute much code. I think I've contributed maybe 300 lines total in the 10 years I've been using Linux (8 years in corporate environments).
Michael Lee Yohe michael.yohe@us.army.mil U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command Software Engineering Directorate
I spend 3 years with a civilian contractor under the BMDO, largely in support of Army PAC-3 and THAAD (I'm an "Angineer" -- i.e. Anal Engineer -- by education and some experience). You anywhere near 'dat coolie stuff???
I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by I adapted.
Huh? All BlueCurve is, is a theme, icon and default application set for each KDE and GNOME. You still have _full_ KDE and GNOME. I don't see your point at all. In fact, I don't think you do either.
I took the third option and installed Ximian.
-Chuck
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:18, Chuck Wolber wrote:
I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by I adapted.
Huh? All BlueCurve is, is a theme, icon and default application set for each KDE and GNOME. You still have _full_ KDE and GNOME. I don't see your point at all. In fact, I don't think you do either.
I took the third option and installed Ximian.
-Chuck
And how do you like it? Like I said, I adapted to BlueCurve, but had really been looking forward to KDE 3. I like Evolution, some things I would like to see, like read receipts and importance, but for the most part it works. Would have been nice if they had a connector that worked with Exchange 5.5 since a lot of people are still running that. Though we are looking at Exchange 2003, Samsung Contact, Communigate Pro, and Byanari.
I took the third option and installed Ximian.
-Chuck
And how do you like it?
It does exactly what I need a desktop to do with a minimum of intrusion (function). I also like the look/feel/layout (form).
-Chuck
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:40, Edward Croft wrote:
<snip>
You also have the choice of finding a third party to provide you support. I've seen on these lists a couple of places that are offering to support Valhalla after Red Hat EOLs it.
Yes this is back to my post about how competitive linux, re cost.
Dave.
And I saw an announcement from Suse that they are releasing Suse 9 soon, and it will have the 2.6 kernel besides the 2.4 kernel for those who want to check it out. Plus support for the AMD 64.
Frankly, I started with Red Hat with 6.2 and liked it. I also liked KDE, um, let's not start a war here, just my preference. I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by
Bluecurve.
is.
a.
THEME/default app settings.
Quoth the Raven "Nothing more".
Maybe it's me, but I'd think an RHCE would know that. ;)
I adapted. Now they are dumping the desktop and going to the server.
Maybe you missed the Enterprise Desktop announcement that was ALL over the press like a year ago was it
Fine, I have all my RH servers here, but on the desktop, I may be looking back to Suse. I had tried it on a spare PC once and it worked well. Looks like I have to pull out my old PCs again and load Mandrake and Suse so that I can evaluate them. Frankly, I feel that Red Hat is becoming the Linux version of MS in dictating to you. I remember when going to Linux meant choice, so I will exercise my right of choice and find another distro. I will still
I CHOSE the easier option: I switched my theme. GO ahead, feel free to choose to remain at the mercy of a commercial entity for your desktop. Me, I'll move on to Fedora and enjoy a current system, regardless of the time of year. One that is updated on my schedule, and includes the updates I want. And I'll use the rpm-based distro that lets me volunteer to maintain packages, set up my own repository and add my own things to the channels if I so choose: Fedora. That's what choice is all about. Fedora will give us more choice than we had with RH boxed set and accompanying system, not lessen it.
You may *feel* that RH is somehow forcing things on you and dictating to you by opening up the consumer level distribution to the rest of us, but until you can back it up, it's nothing more than an unsubstantiated feeling. Hope you enjoy the proprietary installer/sysadmin tool that SuSE dictates.
Cheers, Bill
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:42, Bill Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:40, Edward Croft wrote:
<snip>
<sniP> Bluecurve.
is.
a.
THEME/default app settings.
Quoth the Raven "Nothing more".
Maybe it's me, but I'd think an RHCE would know that. ;)
Yes, I knew BlueCurve was a theme, but there was also writeups that they did stuff to kde and gnome that ended up breaking some things in kde. I probably didn't explain it properly. As I said to Brian, I think it was, I was tired and frustrated when I wrote that and frankly ranting. Let me clarify, when I first installed RH8 with BlueCurve, I was a bit put off. But then again, RH always defaulted to Gnome. I was always able to switch to kde and it would look like kde. With the advent of the thhhheeeemmmmmeeee BlueCurve, when I switched to kde it still looked the same. It apppppeeeeeaaaarrrrreeeed, that you were stuck with BlueCurve look and feel. I had also heard that people had problems if they attempted to load kde 3 on RH 8, so I didn't bother and learned to adapt to the look and feel with BlueCurve. I probably could have gotten kde up and running and dumped the whole BlueCurve look, but I was going through a divorce, lost my home, then lost my job, and a multitude of other things that left futzing with a desktop manager a very low priority. So I adapted to the default. Yes, there is indeed a lot of flexibility with Linux, but there is still a lot of shortcomings. A lot of time I am time constrained and would like it if installing software was as easy and as supported as on Windows. I remember back in '99 when Linus said that he wanted two things, games for his kids, and ease of use and installation so that his grandmother could use it. Well, we are getting there. My wife, just got married two weeks ago, uses RH9 now. She really has no problems. So it is getting there, but I still have trouble when I go to a music site and can't get realplayer to work right. I even tried Crossover Plugin, and that didn't work just right. I could futz with it if I had the time, but that is it, no time. On Windows, you download and run and it works. Okay, so the operating system has major problems, but most things work out of the box. I don't have to go looking up how to install drivers for webcams, scanners, et al. Okay, so I have an oddball scanner that was only supported under 98, but hey. I figure, if I am an RHCE, it all should be easy for me, but it isn't. I just about aced that test, but still can't get music to play at a website. If I want to play a DVD on my PC then I have to go and get plugins for the software because the system doesn't come with it because of licensing. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of RHL. I use it both at work and at home. It just gets frustrating sometimes when things aren't the way you expect them to be. Okay, still tired, still running my mouth. Getting a cup of joe and shutting up now. Ed (under the gun all the time) Croft, RHCE
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 07:20, Edward Croft wrote:
Yes, I knew BlueCurve was a theme, but there was also writeups that they did stuff to kde and gnome that ended up breaking some things in kde. I probably didn't explain it properly. As I said to Brian, I think it was, I was tired and frustrated when I wrote that and frankly ranting. Let me clarify, when I first installed RH8 with BlueCurve, I was a bit put off. But then again, RH always defaulted to Gnome. I was always able to switch to kde and it would look like kde. With the advent of the thhhheeeemmmmmeeee BlueCurve, when I switched to kde it still looked the same. It apppppeeeeeaaaarrrrreeeed, that you were stuck with BlueCurve look and feel.
I don't fault Ed on anything here, there was a lot of complaining on BlueCurve, and that's just what he heard. I chaulk it all up to "you can't please everyone," because Red Hat was targeting the "non-Linux user" who often heard the bigotry of "Linux needs a single interface."
Here's the basic bullet points on why people said what they did:
1) Red Hat is _clearly_ a GNOME-centric company. Unintentionally this causes Red Hat to make GNOME-oriented choices.
2) One Red Hat staffer who supported a lot of the KDE stuff resigned over various details (not related to BlueCurve). Many people then proliferated that he resigned over BlueCurve. I don't know the details myself, but this is what was relayed to me 2nd hand.
3) Many of the default applications for _both_ platforms were GNOME. E.g., the default web browser for KDE was Mozilla, not Konqueror. I could see why KDE would get a little "disturbed at that."
4) You _could_easily_ reset everything "back to defaults." But many people found it even easier just to "bitch" instead of doing that. ;-ppp
In a nutshell Ed, Red Hat gets a lot of flak it doesn't deserve. Yes, they make choices that make some people upset. And they _are_ clearly "GNOME-biased," but it's unintentional.
You always have other choices though.
I had also heard that people had problems if they attempted to load kde 3 on RH 8, so I didn't bother and learned to adapt to the look and feel with BlueCurve.
People have problems upgrading to the latest versions of GNOME, KDE, etc... all the time.
but I was going through a divorce, lost my home, then lost my job, and a multitude of other things that left futzing with a desktop manager a very low priority.
Yeah, the last thing you wanted was "more change." Understand totally. ;-ppp
would like it if installing software was as easy and as supported as on Windows.
Try to install _two_ different versions of MS Office on the same Windows system.
Where people see "hard to install" with regard to Linux, I see "DLL hell" with regards to Windows.
So what is it? Easy installing or DLL hell because the platform does _not_ have dependency checking?
There's no win-win situation, although apt-rpm is getting pretty damn easy.
but I still have trouble when I go to a music site and can't get realplayer to work right.
Whoa! Time out. That is _not_ a Linux issue! That's a site/vendor issue! Linux developers can do _little_ about that.
Next you'll be blaming Linux for unsupported hardware.
If you start blaming Linux developers for clearly 100% site/vendor issues, then there is no way to please you.
You have to ask Linux developers for things they _can_ do.
I even tried Crossover Plugin, and that didn't work just right.
Emulation never truly "works right."
On Windows, you download and run and it works.
And that's because of vendor alliances and other business dealings.
Yep, sure, that's the fault of Linux developers. Yep.
Okay, so the operating system has major problems, but most things work out of the box. I don't have to go looking up how to install drivers for webcams, scanners, et al.
Damn I'm good! [ I knew you would come here ]
Okay, so I have an oddball scanner that was only supported under 98,
Exactomundo. Now put it together ...
- I can only view something on one OS - Hardware is tied to only one OS
Hmmm, that means that I have to get my OS and hardware from select vendors! And I have to upgrade my hardware _every_ time I upgrade my OS. And my OS vendor forces me to upgrade my OS!
Wow! Maybe there's some things going on that _force_ you into this situation???
Let's blame it on the Linux developers for not "giving me a way out" of my vendor lock-in.
but hey. I figure, if I am an RHCE, it all should be easy for me, but it isn't.
Because Linux developers can do _nothing_ about the problems you have above.
I just about aced that test, but still can't get music to play at a website. If I want to play a DVD on my PC then I have to go and get plugins for the software because the system doesn't come with it because of licensing.
Exactomundo. [ At least you get that part ;-]
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of RHL. I use it both at work and at home. It just gets frustrating sometimes when things aren't the way you expect them to be. Okay, still tired, still running my mouth. Getting a cup of joe and shutting up now.
Well, I see your points. I hope you see mine in return. ;-ppp
Ed (under the gun all the time) Croft, RHCE
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 08:56, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
<snip my earlier diatribe and ranting and meandering, oops I did it again>
but I was going through a divorce, lost my home, then lost my job, and a multitude of other things that left futzing with a desktop manager a very low priority.
Yeah, the last thing you wanted was "more change." Understand totally. ;-ppp
Yeah, still catching up with all of that. And changes are still happening, though all for the good. I got a job, a linux shop, woohoo! Got my life back in order and met a wonderful woman that I married just two weeks ago. Hoping things slow down this winter a bit.
would like it if installing software was as easy and as supported as on Windows.
Try to install _two_ different versions of MS Office on the same Windows system.
Nope, in all my years, never had to do that. Installed it on a Terminal Server, that was fun.
Where people see "hard to install" with regard to Linux, I see "DLL hell" with regards to Windows.
So what is it? Easy installing or DLL hell because the platform does _not_ have dependency checking?
There's no win-win situation, although apt-rpm is getting pretty damn easy.
but I still have trouble when I go to a music site and can't get realplayer to work right.
Whoa! Time out. That is _not_ a Linux issue! That's a site/vendor issue! Linux developers can do _little_ about that.
Next you'll be blaming Linux for unsupported hardware.
Don't get me wrong. I have never blamed the developers of Linux for any issues. I was just commenting on the vendor support for Windows. I understand about the industry trying to lock up the whole DVD decoding issue. That is definitely not the developers fault. The developers have tried to support DVD, as in decss, and have been sued by the industry. The industry feels that Windows is safe because it is proprietary, while the Linux code is open. And the developers have done a wonderful job with getting as many devices recognized without input from the vendors themselves. I highly commend what the developers have done without any support from the vendors themselves. The only comment I was making was the ease of installation for most software. This comes from the vendor supporting and writing drivers for Windows. As Linux grows in popularity, the vendors will jump on board and this will become a moot issue.
If you start blaming Linux developers for clearly 100% site/vendor issues, then there is no way to please you.
You have to ask Linux developers for things they _can_ do.
I even tried Crossover Plugin, and that didn't work just right.
Emulation never truly "works right."
I will say that Crossover Office does work fairly well with Office 2000. Which is great when you have to use documents that have been expressly written for Excel or Word, like our POs here. They are formatted in Excel. OpenOffice does not handle that well. Though I do use OO for most everything else including writing documentation. Ugh!
On Windows, you download and run and it works.
And that's because of vendor alliances and other business dealings.
Yep, sure, that's the fault of Linux developers. Yep.
As I said above. I was not blaming the developers. I am just frustrated with getting realplayer to work. Part of that could have been my fault for trying to load the RealOne player for Linux. It might have bolluxed things. See, I do try to be bleeding edge. I just wish vendors supported the system better so that you only had to download and install an rpm and it works. No tweaking, no fussing. I do have flash, java, etc working. I was waiting for RH10 and then I was going to do a clean fresh install to clean everything out and start over.
Okay, so the operating system has major problems, but most things work out of the box. I don't have to go looking up how to install drivers for webcams, scanners, et al.
Damn I'm good! [ I knew you would come here ]
Okay, so I have an oddball scanner that was only supported under 98,
Exactomundo. Now put it together ...
Yeah, it is a firewire scanner from Umax, the 6400. Not supported with any current OS. A $200 anchor. Actually, it does get recognized by Linux, but when Sane starts a scan it starts the pass and then freezes as it hits the end instead of returning and rendering the picture. As I said before, not enough time between work and remodelling our house to investigate this further. Though, my wife informed me that she had another scanner, and HP USB. That worked. Now to learn Gimp so I can get this photo fixed up for my daughter. :-O
- I can only view something on one OS
- Hardware is tied to only one OS
Hmmm, that means that I have to get my OS and hardware from select vendors! And I have to upgrade my hardware _every_ time I upgrade my OS. And my OS vendor forces me to upgrade my OS!
Wow! Maybe there's some things going on that _force_ you into this situation???
Let's blame it on the Linux developers for not "giving me a way out" of my vendor lock-in.
No, no, no. there you go again.... :-P I never blamed the developers. There are a lot of people involved. I blame the vendors who kowtow to ye god Gates. This will change too. Just frustrating right now.
but hey. I figure, if I am an RHCE, it all should be easy for me, but it isn't.
Because Linux developers can do _nothing_ about the problems you have above.
I just about aced that test, but still can't get music to play at a website. If I want to play a DVD on my PC then I have to go and get plugins for the software because the system doesn't come with it because of licensing.
Exactomundo. [ At least you get that part ;-]
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of RHL. I use it both at work and at home. It just gets frustrating sometimes when things aren't the way you expect them to be. Okay, still tired, still running my mouth. Getting a cup of joe and shutting up now.
Well, I see your points. I hope you see mine in return. ;-ppp
Yeppers. I see your points, but I reiterate, I admire the developers. I have met many of them through the years. I was only speaking about the frustrations brought about by proprietary software and vendors that won't play nice. This will change in time. Ed
Quoting Edward Croft ecroft@openratings.com:
Yeah, still catching up with all of that. And changes are still happening, though all for the good. I got a job, a linux shop, woohoo!
I'm at the opposite of the spectrum.
I started introducing Linux on Corporate networks back in 1995. From 1998- 2002, my #1 responsibility was Linux. I moved 1100 miles 2 months ago (at my own expense) to take on a major Linux project once again, at a Fortune 20 company no less, only to see it cancelled 3 weeks into my employment. So now I'm back to 0% Linux (at the same Fortune 20 company).
Got my life back in order and met a wonderful woman that I married just two weeks ago. Hoping things slow down this winter a bit.
If anything is good in my life, it is my wife of 6 years. I think we're going to make it past the "7 year itch" which is now a half a year away.
Nope, in all my years, never had to do that. Installed it on a Terminal Server, that was fun.
I've had numerous situations where a vertical application was still using Access 95 or 97 components when we've moved to 97, 2000 or, more recently, XP.
And MS Word 97/2000/XP are "supposedly" the same format, but that is not simply so. Throw MS Word for Mac 98, 2001, etc... into the mix and you might as well "bend over."
Again, I'll take Linux package dependency hell _any_day_ over Windows' ease-of- installation.
BTW, from a pure security standpoint, software should _never_ be installed with its own binary. Plus I liken to an OS that has a filesystem that _forces_ you to tell it a file is "executable." ;-ppp
Don't get me wrong. I have never blamed the developers of Linux for any issues. I was just commenting on the vendor support for Windows.
And you should do that to a hardware vendor.
But the problem is that most hardware vendors do _not_ like an OS that is perpetual when it comes to drivers. They want to "align" with an OS that _forces_ you to upgrade your hardware, _including_ peripherials, every 2-3 years.
I understand about the industry trying to lock up the whole DVD decoding issue. That is definitely not the developers fault. The developers have tried to support DVD, as in decss, and have been sued by the industry. The industry feels that Windows is safe because it is proprietary, while the Linux code is open. And the developers have done a wonderful job with getting as many devices recognized without input from the vendors themselves. I highly commend what the developers have done without any support from the vendors themselves.
As I always say, if Microsoft had to write their own drivers, they'd be SOL.
The only comment I was making was the ease of installation for most software. This comes from the vendor supporting and writing drivers for Windows. As Linux grows in popularity, the vendors will jump on board and this will become a moot issue.
Not so.
Understand that _most_ hardware _is_ supported by Linux nowdays _except_ for hardware that is _purposely_designed_ to only have drivers for 2-3 to _force_ you to upgrade.
Such hardware, and their vendors, will _never_ support Linux.
As such, Linux doesn't solve the larger issue of "let the buyer beware" which applies to Windows users as well.
I will say that Crossover Office does work fairly well with Office 2000.
But why not run Windows then?
I really don't have a problem with the Windows OS itself -- namely the NT kernel -- it's all the crap that applications have thrown atop of it, forced it to accomodate, etc... Most of the NT developers at Microsoft are very smart cookies, but the tools deveopers, application developers and, ultimiately, their own IT division, are in order of increasing incompetence with with their _own_ OS.
Which is great when you have to use documents that have been expressly written for Excel or Word, like our POs here. They are formatted in Excel. OpenOffice does not handle that well. Though I do use OO for most everything else including writing documentation. Ugh!
That's good. Because in 5 years when they want to edit them, they will be screwed if they are in MS formats.
As one Microsoft Office for Mac developer documented, it's not just the "forced upgrade" approach of Microsoft's Windows applications. It's the larger issue of "data alignment ignorace" in their Windows applications.
As I said above. I was not blaming the developers. I am just frustrated with getting realplayer to work.
I have no such issues myself. The community version works great for me under Mozilla/Galeon.
Part of that could have been my fault for trying to load the RealOne player for Linux. It might have bolluxed things. See, I do try to be bleeding edge. I just wish vendors supported the system better so that you only had to download and install an rpm and it works.
??? I downloaded the community version of RealPlayer in RPM format myself. It works on all version from Red Hat 6 - 9.
No tweaking, no fussing. I do have flash, java, etc working. I was waiting for RH10 and then I was going to do a clean fresh install to clean everything out and start over.
Why? I upgraded from 4.2 to 7.1 (including 5.0, 5.2, 6.0 and 6.2 inbetween), temporarily reloaded 7.2 new when trying out SGI XFS, then when back to stock 7.3 and upgraded to 9 (including 8.0) where I am now. Many times I upgraded "live" -- e.g., 6.0 -> 6.2 by merely using RPM from the command-line (I didn't do that for major X in X.Y version changes though, I used the installer).
I've done this with production servers as well.
Yeah, it is a firewire scanner from Umax, the 6400. Not supported with any current OS.
Huh? FireWire not supported? Really???
FireWire, like SCSI, has a _detailed_ command set. USB, like parallel, does not.
[ Long story on USB, but basically that's why you didn't see devices for 3 years after you had mainboard/OS support. Microsoft and Intel put very _little_ into the "host-end" standard. It's also why USB devices often _conflict_, because must of the "brains" are in the end-device drivers, not the host driver. ]
A $200 anchor. Actually, it does get recognized by Linux, but when Sane starts a scan it starts the pass and then freezes as it hits the end instead of returning and rendering the picture. As I said before, not enough time between work and remodelling our house to investigate this further. Though, my wife informed me that she had another scanner, and HP USB. That worked. Now to learn Gimp so I can get this photo fixed up for my daughter. :-O
I'm still using an 9 year old Microtek Scanmaker III SCSI as my flatbed.
As far as feeder, I'm using a $59 HP OfficeJet V40.
And my wife, she has a $439 HP LaserJet 1220se (which has the scan/copy functionality, plus native Postscript 2). Love it as well.
Bruce Parens did a great job of getting HP "on board."
No, no, no. there you go again.... :-P I never blamed the developers. There are a lot of people involved. I blame the vendors who kowtow to ye god Gates. This will change too. Just frustrating right now.
Some of it will _not_ change (as I mentioned above).
Yeppers. I see your points, but I reiterate, I admire the developers. I have met many of them through the years. I was only speaking about the frustrations brought about by proprietary software and vendors that won't play nice. This will change in time.
"Companies and consumers must be deligent in their choices of hardware and software as vendors will NEVER offer a way out of lock-in." -- Gartner Group (paraphrased)
Bruce Parens did a great job of getting HP "on board."
Until they fired him for said efforts... I got a chance to catch up with him at LWE. Apparently the brainiacs who fired him were sacked as well shortly after.
-Chuck
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 12:40:49 -0400, Edward Croft wrote:
Frankly, I started with Red Hat with 6.2 and liked it. I also liked KDE, um, let's not start a war here, just my preference. I was eagerly anticipating the new version of Red Hat and the new version of KDE only to find they dumped both KDE and Gnome for BlueCurve. Ticked me off, by I adapted.
You can disable "Bluecurve". It's only a common theme for KDE and GNOME. Pick another nice theme.
- -- Michael, who doesn't reply to top posts and complete quotes anymore.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:17, David Holden wrote:
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:48 pm, William Hooper wrote:
David Holden said: [snip]
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version,
Repeat after me, Fedora is not Red Hat. If the Fedora Legacy project can get you 2-3 years then it will be the Fedora Legacy project doing it, not Red Hat.
I've no need to repeat this, I'm well aware of the difference thanks. The above was making precisely the point that redhat won't be providing security updates to Fedora.
Then your point is invalid. RH *will* be doing so. However, the time period is shorter, and there is no SLA on it. See below.
It seems this is related to the confusion between *support* and *maintenance*.
This is in part required. RH will *not* be maintaining all the packages that go into Fedora Core. The software/package maintainers will be. For a goodly portion of them, those will not be packaged by RH for FC.
""" 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. """ --http://fedora.redhat.com/about/faq/
So your claim is incorrect.
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 10:05 pm, Bill Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:17, David Holden wrote:
On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:48 pm, William Hooper wrote:
David Holden said: [snip]
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates for the next 2-3 years for that version,
Repeat after me, Fedora is not Red Hat. If the Fedora Legacy project can get you 2-3 years then it will be the Fedora Legacy project doing it, not Red Hat.
I've no need to repeat this, I'm well aware of the difference thanks. The above was making precisely the point that redhat won't be providing security updates to Fedora.
ok, let me rei-write that sentence
"The above was making precisely the point that redhat won't be providing security updates to Fedora *version "x"* covering the following 2-3 years of its release"
is this correct?
Most of what you say below re-enforces the above sentence no?
Personally the most important thing for me is security updates thats what I subscribe to rhn for.
Dave.
Then your point is invalid. RH *will* be doing so. However, the time period is shorter, and there is no SLA on it. See below.
It seems this is related to the confusion between *support* and *maintenance*.
This is in part required. RH will *not* be maintaining all the packages that go into Fedora Core. The software/package maintainers will be. For a goodly portion of them, those will not be packaged by RH for FC.
""" 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. """ --http://fedora.redhat.com/about/faq/
So your claim is incorrect.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 10:05, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
I.e., I used to find Red Hat Linux the best of both QA/integration testing and half-way recent/current packages. In the Debian world, the two see to be mutually exclusive -- Stable = former, Testing = latter.
Actually their testing distribution is by far the worst distribution. (unless it's close to a new stable).
The unstable release (bleeeeding edge) is not half bad. I use that on my work PC. Of course ... galeon hasn't worked for a bit now.
No worries. I have konqueror, mozilla, etc.
As long as the dist-upgrades are kept to a minimum (use just upgrade instead)...it seems pretty reliable to me.
-Chris
"There is a lot of speculation and I guess there is going to continue to be a log of speculation until the speculation ends." - George W. Bush on October 18, 1998
You mean with commercial Linux for the desktop?
Suse and Lindows are both taking a stab at that market.
I can't imagine that RH wants to ignore that market completely. It is that market that promises a tremendous growth opportunity. The server market though still growing is starting to mature. I imagine that in the next 2-4 years we should see the server growth slowly decreasing while the desktop market will continue to show increasing growth.
That is if it is possible to determine what the real growth of Linux on desktops is.
-Chris
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 07:48, David Holden wrote:
On Wednesday 01 Oct 2003 5:51 pm, Buck wrote:
Red Hat does not have to charge their prices to stay solvent. Their only business need is to increase productivity and profit. It is now a publicly traded company and has a responsibility to the stock holders (whether or not I like it). As for losing business, there are many times in which losing customers is more profitable than keeping them. I started my home based business servicing home computers on-site at a low rate. After a while, I was constantly driving, working or talking on the phone. I eventually tripled my rates, dropped most of my home support and retained 3 commercial customers. Even though I lost my one biggest account, I only needed to work about 1 or two days a week and my "keep" pay was the same as when I was busting my @$$ all week long. Likewise, Red Hat is probably catering to their "million-dollar" accounts that require less overhead to service and dropping their customers that might be making a profit, but costs them more to service and support. Sure, they may lose 25% of their "business" but what remains will be much more profitable leaving them with more time and resources to service their contracts, improve their product and work with Fedora.
Well, that's my $.02 (or less) worth.
Really, it's just business.
Buck
All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Dave.
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
That would depend on their user base and future objectives. Who knows, maybe they have one in their business plans for later implementation after the dust settles on the current changes.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Chris Spencer Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 11:45 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator
You mean with commercial Linux for the desktop?
Suse and Lindows are both taking a stab at that market.
I can't imagine that RH wants to ignore that market completely. It is that market that promises a tremendous growth opportunity. The server market though still growing is starting to mature. I imagine that in the next 2-4 years we should see the server growth slowly decreasing while the desktop market will continue to show increasing growth.
That is if it is possible to determine what the real growth of Linux on desktops is.
-Chris
For me, it looks like it will be SuSE. I will be checking it out this weekend.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: David Holden [mailto:dh@iucr.org] Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:49 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Buck; 'Benjamin J. Weiss'; 'Alexandre Oliva' Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator
All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Dave.
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, it looks like it will be SuSE. I will be checking it out this weekend.
One thing I want to make clear is that I don't see it as "Red Hat v. SuSE."
Both Red Hat and SuSE have their "consumer" products as well as their "Enterprise" products. In the case of Red Hat, it seems the "consumer" products will no longer be shrink wrapped.
SuSE will offer its SuSE Linux 9 Professional for x86-64 for $119.
But I think _many_ people are _forgetting_ that Red Hat will also be offering its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 for AMD64 for $179 via download with 1 year subscription.
Now SuSE is going to ship the kitchen sink (6 CDs, 1 DVD) whereas Red Hat is shipping a desktop OS with limited services. I'll admit to that.
But Red Hat is also shipping a GPL-anal distro, whereas SuSE has a habit to introduce all sorts of non-GPL dependencies.
Again, for _me_ (and I do not expect anyone else to feel obligated to agree), I like the Red Hat approach _assuming_ I can build Fedora packages from SRPM on RHEL WS 3.0 AMD64.
Again, I'll re-iterate, regardless of whether Fedora is a community or a Red Hat "focus area," it's in Red Hat's best commercial interest to ensure the non- core Fedora packages at least build on their Enterprise series of products.
-- Bryan "I've beat this horse beyond 9 lives" Smith
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
But Red Hat is also shipping a GPL-anal distro, whereas SuSE has a habit to introduce all sorts of non-GPL dependencies.
And I remind you that Red Hat offers ISO images and binarie&sources updates freely for every distribution. SuSE doesn't has free ISO, although you are able to install it through NET and update it.
Now compare this: Red Hat Linux 9 has free ISOs from the internet. SuSE Install from the internet (BPITA) or download to a server with NFS installed and install from that server. Red Hat network for 12 months (for up2date) $60.00 SuSE Professional Upgrade: includes disks and their version of up2date for the supported life of the product.
I know that RHL is history. But that is what I had a few weeks ago.
Both Red Hat and SuSE are releasing new products every 4-6 months. Red hat was maintaining theirs for the life of the following release (8-12 months total) and SuSE maintains theirs for 18 - 24 months, but "that's not a promise" or, in other words, subject to change without notice or continued support. Lol
Really, the cost of RHL with maintenance and SuSE with maintenance was about the same. Buy every other version of SuSE and it would be about the same price.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Xose Vazquez Perez Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 5:56 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- Red Hat v. SuSE it is not ...
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
But Red Hat is also shipping a GPL-anal distro, whereas SuSE has a habit to introduce all sorts of non-GPL dependencies.
And I remind you that Red Hat offers ISO images and binarie&sources updates freely for every distribution. SuSE doesn't has free ISO, although you are able to install it through NET and update it.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:08, Buck wrote:
Now compare this: Red Hat Linux 9 has free ISOs from the internet. SuSE Install from the internet (BPITA) or download to a server with NFS installed and install from that server. Red Hat network for 12 months (for up2date) $60.00 SuSE Professional Upgrade: includes disks and their version of up2date for the supported life of the product.
Whoa there Hoss. The update is just that, an update. Compare Professional, not the update. Professional is 80 bucks. The update *service* is 50, bu the website is a bit confusing on the whole thing.
The maintenance of packages ofr he life of the product is no the same as using an u2date network service (though to be at least somewhat on topic, Fedora's up2date supports apt and yum for third party tools whereas YOU does not.
I know that RHL is history. But that is what I had a few weeks ago.
Both Red Hat and SuSE are releasing new products every 4-6 months. Red hat was maintaining theirs for the life of the following release (8-12 months total)
And Now Fedora will total 7-10 months for maintenance. SuSE says their non-enterprise cycle is 6 months, not 4-6 -- that's Fedora.
and SuSE maintains theirs for 18 - 24 months, but "that's not a promise" or, in other words, subject to change without notice or continued support. Lol
IIRC< RH says the same thing about Fedora: no SLA
Really, the cost of RHL with maintenance and SuSE with maintenance was about the same. Buy every other version of SuSE and it would be about the same price.
Now that this thread is thoroughly hijacked ...
For Enterprise Desktops you are looking at: RH: 179/year (Basic) SuSE: 120+100/year (get 5) (Basic)
RH "Standard" WS: 300/year -- includes 4 hour SLA on phone support, 2 bus day on web SuSE: Apparently no "Premium" on Desktop.
For Enterprise Servers you are looking at: Product Basic Standard Premium RH-AS n/a 1499 2499 RH-ES 349 799 n/a SuSE-ES 750(699/year after) 2250
For RHAS Std Support: See above for desktops. For RHAS Premium Support: pri-1 ticket response time:Web; 1 BD. Phone: 1 hour For SLES "Maintenance" Support: You can download stuff and join a web portal. You get email for security updates. For SLES Premium Support: 2 hour on phone, no SLA on any other means of communication
Life cycle: RH: "at least five years" SuSE: 5 years from launch date (not from EOL as some have said)
So comparing ES to ES: RH wins hands down on support/price Comparing AS to ES: RH wins hands down on support, for a bit more money.
Ok, I wasn't discussing or comparing Enterprise. That's out of my area of interest at this time.
According to Sales, Professional (the product I spent the most time on) and Upgrade are the same thing. The only difference is the printed documentation comes with Pro for $30 more. However, Rick very clearly stated that the purchase of either Pro or Pro Upgrade included the maintenance for the life of the product. There was no extra charge. There is a subscription service for the updates for $50 ea that allows you to get the first releases, but there was no extra charge for the maintenance updates.
I stand corrected on the SuSE cycle but remember that I was comparing this to the, now deceased Red Hat Linux (such as version 8 and 9).
I have no doubt that if Red Hat made a comparable product I would be more attracted to it, if for no other reason than the people on these lists.
I do not talk about other products to promote them on here, I hope everyone realizes that. I am weighing my options and looking for the one that is most compatible to my goals.
I have heard rumors that Red Hat is going to be announcing a possible low-end product but until I hear it and see it, it doesn't exist.
Thanks Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bill Anderson Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 9:40 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- Red Hat v. SuSE it isnot ...
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:08, Buck wrote:
Now compare this: Red Hat Linux 9 has free ISOs from the internet. SuSE Install from the internet (BPITA) or download to a server with
NFS
installed and install from that server. Red Hat network for 12 months (for up2date) $60.00 SuSE Professional Upgrade: includes disks and their version of up2date for the supported life of the product.
Whoa there Hoss. The update is just that, an update. Compare Professional, not the update. Professional is 80 bucks. The update *service* is 50, bu the website is a bit confusing on the whole thing.
The maintenance of packages ofr he life of the product is no the same as using an u2date network service (though to be at least somewhat on topic, Fedora's up2date supports apt and yum for third party tools whereas YOU does not.
I know that RHL is history. But that is what I had a few weeks ago.
Both Red Hat and SuSE are releasing new products every 4-6 months. Red hat was maintaining theirs for the life of the following release (8-12 months total)
And Now Fedora will total 7-10 months for maintenance. SuSE says their non-enterprise cycle is 6 months, not 4-6 -- that's Fedora.
and SuSE maintains theirs for 18 - 24 months, but "that's not a promise" or, in other words, subject to change without notice or
continued support. Lol
IIRC< RH says the same thing about Fedora: no SLA
Really, the cost of RHL with maintenance and SuSE with maintenance was
about the same. Buy every other version of SuSE and it would be about the same price.
Now that this thread is thoroughly hijacked ...
For Enterprise Desktops you are looking at: RH: 179/year (Basic) SuSE: 120+100/year (get 5) (Basic)
RH "Standard" WS: 300/year -- includes 4 hour SLA on phone support, 2 bus day on web SuSE: Apparently no "Premium" on Desktop.
For Enterprise Servers you are looking at: Product Basic Standard Premium RH-AS n/a 1499 2499 RH-ES 349 799 n/a SuSE-ES 750(699/year after) 2250
For RHAS Std Support: See above for desktops. For RHAS Premium Support: pri-1 ticket response time:Web; 1 BD. Phone: 1 hour For SLES "Maintenance" Support: You can download stuff and join a web portal. You get email for security updates. For SLES Premium Support: 2 hour on phone, no SLA on any other means of communication
Life cycle: RH: "at least five years" SuSE: 5 years from launch date (not from EOL as some have said)
So comparing ES to ES: RH wins hands down on support/price Comparing AS to ES: RH wins hands down on support, for a bit more money.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:55, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
And I remind you that Red Hat offers ISO images and binarie&sources updates freely for every distribution. SuSE doesn't has free ISO, although you are able to install it through NET and update it.
What are you talking about?
Show me where RH AS2.1 in ISO freely available.
It's not EVERY distribution. It's only their consumer desktop distributions. You know...the one that they built that gave them a user base that has enabled them to build a profitable business and claim the title of world wide Linux leader.
Yeah that one has been freely available....oh except for the 7.* series where they added one CD that they wouldn't distribute.
Suse is freely available in the same sense.
-Chris
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." - Benjamin Franklin
Chris Spencer wrote:
What are you talking about?
Show me where RH AS2.1 in ISO freely available.
It's not EVERY distribution. It's only their consumer desktop distributions. You know...the one that they built that gave them a user base that has enabled them to build a profitable business and claim the title of world wide Linux leader.
we were talking about *Red Hat Linux*, not Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Yeah that one has been freely available....oh except for the 7.* series where they added one CD that they wouldn't distribute.
Because it was a CD full of binary and propietary.
Suse is freely available in the same sense.
in your opinion.
Quoting Xose Vazquez Perez xose@wanadoo.es:
we were talking about *Red Hat Linux*, not Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Damn straight! Quit comparing RH*E*L to SuSE Linux! Compare RHEL to SuSE *Enterprise* Linux!
I know there is some "overlap," but it's all the same.
in your opinion.
I'm open to someone correcting me, but since when is YaST (among about 50 other packages in SuSE Linux) 100% redistributable?
How about SuSE Enterprise Linux?
And I don't mean in the context of _only_ "certain packaging" (e.g., "evaluation CDs," "loaners," "LUG-only", etc...).
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
I'm open to someone correcting me, but since when is YaST (among about 50 other packages in SuSE Linux) 100% redistributable?
www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html #3 Dissemination
"It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have been reproduced without authorisation for payment without the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG or SuSE Linux. Distribution of the YaST programme, its sources, whether amended or unamended in full or in part thereof, and the works derived thereof for a charge require the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG."
How about SuSE Enterprise Linux?
about ?
I agree. The need or desire dictates the product used. For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire. If, on the other hand I desire to sell it, I have to re-sell a legal boxed version. Not a problem for me. I can afford $50 once for 18 - 24 months of "maintenance" the term for what you get from up2date with RH.
Please be advised, I am not pushing RH here. I haven't tried it and if I like it when I do, I will probably go that route. I will have to see if I run into any walls or restrictions. It may be that RH will release a similar option before I lock in my decision.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bryan J. Smith Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 5:48 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Buck Cc: dh@iucr.org; fedora-list@redhat.com; 'Benjamin J. Weiss'; 'Alexandre Oliva' Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- Red Hat v. SuSE it is not ...
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, it looks like it will be SuSE. I will be checking it out this
weekend.
One thing I want to make clear is that I don't see it as "Red Hat v. SuSE."
Both Red Hat and SuSE have their "consumer" products as well as their "Enterprise" products. In the case of Red Hat, it seems the "consumer" products will no longer be shrink wrapped.
SuSE will offer its SuSE Linux 9 Professional for x86-64 for $119.
But I think _many_ people are _forgetting_ that Red Hat will also be offering its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 for AMD64 for $179 via download with 1 year subscription.
Now SuSE is going to ship the kitchen sink (6 CDs, 1 DVD) whereas Red Hat is shipping a desktop OS with limited services. I'll admit to that.
But Red Hat is also shipping a GPL-anal distro, whereas SuSE has a habit to introduce all sorts of non-GPL dependencies.
Again, for _me_ (and I do not expect anyone else to feel obligated to agree), I like the Red Hat approach _assuming_ I can build Fedora packages from SRPM on RHEL WS 3.0 AMD64.
Again, I'll re-iterate, regardless of whether Fedora is a community or a Red Hat "focus area," it's in Red Hat's best commercial interest to ensure the non- core Fedora packages at least build on their Enterprise series of products.
-- Bryan "I've beat this horse beyond 9 lives" Smith
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going to go ahead and make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull down a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase, but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
I spent 20 minutes on the phone with a SuSE Sales man. I specifically discussed giving a friend of mine a copy of Professional so only one of us would purchase it and we would install it on our home computers and on a group of computers we would be using for practice and learning. Later we would install a copy on a production computer for a business. He said I could give him one and we could install it on all of our computers but if I sold the copy to the business or included it with a computer or other purchased product, I would have to buy a copy for the business. I was not allowed to distribute a copy with any form of financial gain or reimbursement.
This was Professional. It doesn't include Open Office, etc. (at least not described on the website).
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: Bryan J. Smith [mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org] Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 6:09 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Buck Cc: dh@iucr.org; 'Benjamin J. Weiss'; 'Alexandre Oliva' Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going to go ahead and make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull down a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase, but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
I just confirmed with "Rick" at sales: Only for the Professional, Professional Update and Personal, one can distribute CD-ROMs for free as long as "no profit is involved".
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Buck Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 6:30 PM To: 'Bryan J. Smith'; fedora-list@redhat.com Cc: dh@iucr.org; 'Benjamin J. Weiss'; 'Alexandre Oliva' Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
I spent 20 minutes on the phone with a SuSE Sales man. I specifically discussed giving a friend of mine a copy of Professional so only one of us would purchase it and we would install it on our home computers and on a group of computers we would be using for practice and learning. Later we would install a copy on a production computer for a business. He said I could give him one and we could install it on all of our computers but if I sold the copy to the business or included it with a computer or other purchased product, I would have to buy a copy for the business. I was not allowed to distribute a copy with any form of financial gain or reimbursement.
This was Professional. It doesn't include Open Office, etc. (at least not described on the website).
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: Bryan J. Smith [mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org] Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 6:09 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Buck Cc: dh@iucr.org; 'Benjamin J. Weiss'; 'Alexandre Oliva' Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going to go ahead and make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull down a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase, but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
I just confirmed with "Rick" at sales: Only for the Professional, Professional Update and Personal, one can distribute CD-ROMs for free as long as "no profit is involved".
What do they mean by profit? During an install I charge a fee for the installation and some OS tweaking, but it is understood that the OS software itself is free. I might even leave behind a few CDs, but what I charge for is my time as a consultant. Sometimes even that is free if the customer has opted for one of our support contracts.
-Chuck
My understanding is that if you provide the product, it is for a profit but if the customer hands you the product to install, it is free. You can get around this by taking the customer a copy of the discs one day before and then when you go back, pick up the customer's copy and install it into his computer.
Personally, for the low price, just buy a copy of Pro Upgrade and charge it back to the customer once. It's only $50 and they get the maintenance updates for the maintenance life of the product.
I was told specifically that it was a violation of the copyright to install it on a system and sell the system without buying a copy of the Linux. Sales was pretty specific that the free distribution could not be associated with a profit.
Upgrade does not include manuals and costs less than Pro with manuals. That's the only difference. You don't have to buy manuals unless you want them. Besides, no law says you can't sell it above retail. I have done it many times. Just be sure to collect and pay the sales tax. I started paying the sales tax when I buy a product and turning the original receipt to the customer and charging them for service or labor. No tax and the business writes it off instead of depreciating it.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Wolber Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 2:57 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Cc: 'Bryan J. Smith' Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
I just confirmed with "Rick" at sales: Only for the Professional, Professional Update and Personal, one can distribute CD-ROMs for free as long as "no profit is involved".
What do they mean by profit? During an install I charge a fee for the installation and some OS tweaking, but it is understood that the OS software itself is free. I might even leave behind a few CDs, but what I
charge for is my time as a consultant. Sometimes even that is free if the customer has opted for one of our support contracts.
-Chuck
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:09, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going to go ahead and make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull down a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase, but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
Nope.
Here's a short, short list: Codeweaver Crossover Office SUN Star Office
And more importantly, perhaps: "On how many machines may I install and utilize SuSE Linux Desktop? SuSE Linux Desktop may be installed on every machine for which a separate maintenance agreement was closed. 2. Why does this Linux system only have a license for one workstation? The "normal" Linux components of SuSE Linux Desktop are Open Source and may be copied and utilized pursuant to the applicable licenses (GPL, YaST, etc.). However, the individual components are subject to licenses that limit the deployment to one machine. 3. Do I lose the license when the maintenance agreement expires? No. By purchasing the Maintenance Program once, you obtain the license for the continuous utilization of all components of SuSE Linux as described above. "
It is the OP who is incorrect. Note, with all due shock and horror, at number 2 (no, not *that* number 2! ;) ).
According to their site, the maintenance program for 1 year on 5 clients is 500 bucks(US). Ouch. for 50 clients it comes to ~85/client/year. Ouch again. Those are just the desktops.
http://www.suse.com/us/business/services/support/maintenance/index.html
The way I read it, RHN is a bargain by comparison --and is cheaper:
Further, SuSE Enterprise 8 is 749 USD. Additional years are 699 for just the "Maintenance program". "Premium support" is 2250/year. IIUI, this is the equivalent of the RH offering.
So, for all those considering SuSE because RHEL is "too much". Well, now you're better prepared for the sticker shock. ;)
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On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:02:20 -0400, Buck wrote:
Cc: dh@iucr.org, "'Benjamin J. Weiss'" benjamin@Weiss.name, "'Alexandre Oliva'" aoliva@redhat.com
Is this necessary?
Do these people appreciate getting carbon copies of mails which don't even reply to what they have written?
- --
I don't CC anyone in a list, but I just discovered a list message with about 5 CCs or additional addresses. I removed all but the list and the message originator. I don't know how many cc's I have replied to before I caught it.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Michael Schwendt Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 6:26 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- Red Hat v. SuSE it is not ...
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On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:02:20 -0400, Buck wrote:
Cc: dh@iucr.org, "'Benjamin J. Weiss'" benjamin@Weiss.name, "'Alexandre Oliva'" aoliva@redhat.com
Is this necessary?
Do these people appreciate getting carbon copies of mails which don't even reply to what they have written?
- --
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
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On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 19:23:03 -0400, Buck wrote:
I don't CC anyone in a list, but I just discovered a list message with about 5 CCs or additional addresses. I removed all but the list and the message originator. I don't know how many cc's I have replied to before I caught it.
You shouldn't need to remove any addresses at all. Your mail reader should not ignore the "Reply-To:" setting which always points back to the list address. A capable mail client has a separate "Reply to all" feature. You should not include the message originator either. Someone who posts to this list is subscribed and gets your reply via the list already.
Only in urgent matters, a subscriber will ask for Cc mails explicitly to not suffer from any list delivery delays.
- --
On Oct 2, 2003, Michael Schwendt ms-nospam-0306@arcor.de wrote:
On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:02:20 -0400, Buck wrote:
Cc: dh@iucr.org, "'Benjamin J. Weiss'" benjamin@Weiss.name, "'Alexandre Oliva'" aoliva@redhat.com
Is this necessary?
Do these people appreciate getting carbon copies of mails which don't even reply to what they have written?
FWIW, I don't really care. My mailer will delete duplicates, and downloading one more copy of the message is no big deal as long as it's not huge. In fact, I like being Cc:ed when my attention is asked for (e.g., when I took part in a discussion) because my mailer is configured to highlight messages that have my e-mail address in To: or Cc:.
As for Reply-To:, I've configured this group in Gnus with (broken-reply-to . t), such that reply goes to the author, and follow-up goes to everybody, as intended.
Buck wrote:
I agree. The need or desire dictates the product used. For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long term
take note: "At the moment_ we are maintaining SuSE Linux for 2 years - that means Bug fixes and Security fixes will be released for two years for each SuSE Linux version. Contrary to our business products with maintenance this is _not_ guaranteed."
stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red
$40 SuSE Linux 8.2 Personal is very castrated. http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/pers_prof.html Red Hat Linux is cheaper, free. And you are able to get all *ISO* images from NET.
Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire. If, on the
^^^^ http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html
Are you sure of this?. With RH Linux you are free to install it wherever you want. And Modify and sell it under your _own_ name(without rh logos....)
I am sure: I confirmed on the telephone just a few minutes ago that Professional, Professional Upgrade and Personal can be freely distributed "as long as no profit is involved."
Professional Upgrade comes without the manuals but is fully installable. You don't have to be upgrading.
Pro: $79.95, Pro Upgrade: $49.95, and Personal: $39.95.
One thing about Linux: it has variety.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Xose Vazquez Perez Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 6:47 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- Red Hat v. SuSE it is not ...
Buck wrote:
I agree. The need or desire dictates the product used. For me, SuSE is more affordable, has long term maintenance and an option for a long
term
take note: "At the moment_ we are maintaining SuSE Linux for 2 years - that means Bug fixes and Security fixes will be released for two years for each SuSE Linux version. Contrary to our business products with maintenance this is _not_ guaranteed."
stable product compatible with the rest. For $50 ($10 less than the Red
$40 SuSE Linux 8.2 Personal is very castrated. http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/pers_prof.html Red Hat Linux is cheaper, free. And you are able to get all *ISO* images from NET.
Hat Network) I get an original disc, I can copy and distribute it for
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
free, and I can install it on all the computers I desire. If, on the
^^^^ http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html
Are you sure of this?. With RH Linux you are free to install it wherever you want. And Modify and sell it under your _own_ name(without rh logos....)
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 18:47, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
<snip> Are you sure of this?. With RH Linux you are free to install it wherever you want. And Modify and sell it under your _own_ name(without rh logos....)
Correct me if I am off, but isn't this how Mandrake got started? Didn't they originally take RHL and make some minor changes, relabel and sell as their own? Just curious for histories sake. Ed.
Edward Croft wrote:
Correct me if I am off, but isn't this how Mandrake got started? Didn't they originally take RHL and make some minor changes, relabel and sell as their own? Just curious for histories sake.
That's correct, firsts mdk distribitions were Red Hat Linux with some updates and new packages.
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting Buck RHList@towncorp.net:
For me, it looks like it will be SuSE. I will be checking it out this weekend.
One thing I want to make clear is that I don't see it as "Red Hat v. SuSE."
Both Red Hat and SuSE have their "consumer" products as well as their "Enterprise" products. In the case of Red Hat, it seems the "consumer" products will no longer be shrink wrapped.
That's not what they claim. At http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html they claim Fedora is for "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers". The rest of their products (WS, ES, AS) are for business. There is no "consumer" product.
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 07:41, Paul Gear wrote:
That's not what they claim. At http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html they claim Fedora is for "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers". The rest of their products (WS, ES, AS) are for business. There is no "consumer" product.
Okay, change my "have" to "had" and I am now correct. Red Hat _used_ to refer to the RHL series as "consumer."
Fedora is no longer "consumer" like RHL was. I stand corrected.
We now have "Fedora" and "enterprise" : "ethusiast" and "business"
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 07:41, Paul Gear wrote:
That's not what they claim. At http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html they claim Fedora is for "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers". The rest of their products (WS, ES, AS) are for business. There is no "consumer" product.
Okay, change my "have" to "had" and I am now correct. Red Hat _used_ to refer to the RHL series as "consumer."
Fedora is no longer "consumer" like RHL was. I stand corrected.
We now have "Fedora" and "enterprise" : "ethusiast" and "business"
And that's the whole problem, isn't it? :-) Some of us need more than "enthusiast", but less than "enterprise"...
I really don't understand why Red Hat couldn't just dump the "boxed set, store shelf" part of the "consumer" distro and still do everything as before. That would cut back most of the costs associated with the retail channel, yet allow us to keep using a reasonably well-supported OS.
Surely producing a CD-ROM distribution available by subscription only and charging a low-to-medium amount of money for RHN basic wouldn't be that much of a money sink...
Quoting Paul Gear paul@gear.dyndns.org:
And that's the whole problem, isn't it? :-) Some of us need more than "enthusiast", but less than "enterprise"... I really don't understand why Red Hat couldn't just dump the "boxed set, store shelf" part of the "consumer" distro and still do everything as before. That would cut back most of the costs associated with the retail channel, yet allow us to keep using a reasonably well-supported OS.
I think that's what they may be doing. But they can't just come right out and say that. It's all about support. What they ship, they have to support (even if it's not a law, nor followed by many Linux distributors, but a Red Hat distro motto ;-)
In every case I have played "wait and see" with Red Hat, I have _always_ been pleasantly surprised. I hope Fedora does as well. It's in Red Hat's own interest to do so.
I see Bob Young speak on business, not much different than Bill Gates, but unlike Bill Gates, he doesn't screw his own developers. I then see Red Hat's developers and technologists implement a 100% community-focused feature and package set. I'm biased, but I really like Red Hat for the balancing act they are able to come off with.
Surely producing a CD-ROM distribution available by subscription only and charging a low-to-medium amount of money for RHN basic wouldn't be that much of a money sink...
I think we'll see a lot of "repositories" crop up. I chaulk this all up to internal Red Hat developers and technologies proving to the management that the community can better support distribution than RHN.
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
I love it when someone new to a LUG (obviously using Outlook) complained about my ettique of bottom posting and cutting out irrelevant quotes in my response.
When I talked to a Red Hat representative on the telephone, Red Hat has adopted a policy that states that the name "Red Hat" will be associated with reliability and support. I don't believe there will be an unsupported Red Hat again.
Speaking on my own as I see it: Red Hat wants whomever hears their name to think "Quality, reliability, availability, 'I want it!'". Red Hat is aware that there a lot of confusion has arisen because of the names "Red Hat Linux" and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" and they only want the image of RHEL. The only way to get that is to divorce from "Red Hat Linux" and terminate its name. Until the last few weeks when I became active on this list, there was only "Red Hat Linux" the big umbrella that meant all of their products collectively and severally. That creates a lot of confusion, and confusion costs customers.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bryan J. Smith Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 9:57 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com; Paul Gear Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- "have" -> "had"
Quoting Paul Gear paul@gear.dyndns.org:
And that's the whole problem, isn't it? :-) Some of us need more than "enthusiast", but less than "enterprise"... I really don't understand why Red Hat couldn't just dump the "boxed set, store shelf"
part of the "consumer" distro and still do everything as before. That
would cut back most of the costs associated with the retail channel, yet allow us to keep using a reasonably well-supported OS.
I think that's what they may be doing. But they can't just come right out and say that. It's all about support. What they ship, they have to support (even if it's not a law, nor followed by many Linux distributors, but a Red Hat distro motto ;-)
In every case I have played "wait and see" with Red Hat, I have _always_ been pleasantly surprised. I hope Fedora does as well. It's in Red Hat's own interest to do so.
I see Bob Young speak on business, not much different than Bill Gates, but unlike Bill Gates, he doesn't screw his own developers. I then see Red Hat's developers and technologists implement a 100% community-focused feature and package set. I'm biased, but I really like Red Hat for the balancing act they are able to come off with.
Surely producing a CD-ROM distribution available by subscription only and charging a low-to-medium amount of money for RHN basic wouldn't be
that much of a money sink...
I think we'll see a lot of "repositories" crop up. I chaulk this all up to internal Red Hat developers and technologies proving to the management that the community can better support distribution than RHN.
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
I love it when someone new to a LUG (obviously using Outlook) complained about my ettique of bottom posting and cutting out irrelevant quotes in my response.
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On Friday 03 October 2003 08:06 am, Paul Gear wrote:
Bryan J. Smith wrote:
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 07:41, Paul Gear wrote:
That's not what they claim. At http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html they claim Fedora is for "Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers". The rest of their products (WS, ES, AS) are for business. There is no "consumer" product.
Okay, change my "have" to "had" and I am now correct. Red Hat _used_ to refer to the RHL series as "consumer."
Fedora is no longer "consumer" like RHL was. I stand corrected.
We now have "Fedora" and "enterprise" : "ethusiast" and "business"
And that's the whole problem, isn't it? :-) Some of us need more than "enthusiast", but less than "enterprise"...
I really don't understand why Red Hat couldn't just dump the "boxed set, store shelf" part of the "consumer" distro and still do everything as before. That would cut back most of the costs associated with the retail channel, yet allow us to keep using a reasonably well-supported OS.
Surely producing a CD-ROM distribution available by subscription only and charging a low-to-medium amount of money for RHN basic wouldn't be that much of a money sink...
Here's my take on this. RH was apparently on two development tracks, RHL and RHEL. Each had a separate code base. I think RHEL was based on RH 7.2, but I could be wrong. In essence you had double the work support two products. That meant a large duplication of effort on the development and test end, including duplicating some staff. They couldn't support both. Creating box sets is peanuts compared to the cost of maintaining two code sets.
Mike W - -- Registered Linux - 256979 NRA Life ARS: W0TMW
On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 05:47:42PM -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Again, for _me_ (and I do not expect anyone else to feel obligated to agree), I like the Red Hat approach _assuming_ I can build Fedora packages from SRPM on RHEL WS 3.0 AMD64.
Again, I'll re-iterate, regardless of whether Fedora is a community or a Red Hat "focus area," it's in Red Hat's best commercial interest to ensure the non- core Fedora packages at least build on their Enterprise series of products.
Well, some just won't have all the dependencies you need to build in isolation. Trying to build packages that depend on GNOME 2.4 on RHEL3 WS isn't going to work. And it's possible that over time, changes such as new RPM macros might be added that require some changes to build on RHEL3.
That said, I don't see us intentionally breaking compilation of Fedora Core packages on RHEL just to break them -- that would not help us either...
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
Quoting "Michael K. Johnson" johnsonm@redhat.com:
Well, some just won't have all the dependencies you need to build in isolation.
And I understand that.**
Trying to build packages that depend on GNOME 2.4 on RHEL3 WS isn't going to work.
And I understand that, based on your first statement.**
[ **NOTE: Is there any overriding reason RHEL is making the "jump" from 2.1 to 3.0? Are major kernel changes, like NPTL, going into the kernel? I'm just curious. I'm kinda wondering why this is on "2.2" since RHEL hasn't been around for that many versions yet. ]
And it's possible that over time, changes such as new RPM macros might be added that require some changes to build on RHEL3.
Er, um, that might start causing some issues. I would at least like to see some consistency in the package manager itself.
This is probably an area where Red Hat's internal developers should try to "advise" on. Again, it's in Red Hat's own best interest to do so, to keep people buying their RHEL products.
That said, I don't see us intentionally breaking compilation of Fedora Core packages on RHEL just to break them -- that would not help us either...
And I would never assume such.
I'm looking for, more or less, the ability to add basic applications from Fedora to RHEL.
On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 01:14:32PM -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
[ **NOTE: Is there any overriding reason RHEL is making the "jump" from 2.1 to 3.0? Are major kernel changes, like NPTL, going into the kernel? I'm just curious. I'm kinda wondering why this is on "2.2" since RHEL hasn't been around for that many versions yet. ]
Well, perhaps the taroon beta list would be a better place for that discussion, but...
First of all: It did not jump to "3.0". There's no ".0" in it. Just "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3" with no decimal or decimal-ish part.
There are lots of changes. I think the more interesting questions would probably be what *hasn't* changed. Yes, NPTL is in. If I tried to present the new features here I'd miss lots of them, even in my area of the kernel. I know that our sales force has the capability to talk about the features that have been added.
And it's possible that over time, changes such as new RPM macros might be added that require some changes to build on RHEL3.
Er, um, that might start causing some issues. I would at least like to see some consistency in the package manager itself.
We're not going to avoid deploying new technology in Fedora just because you want to be able to build Fedora packages on RHEL. :-)
If you look historically, the changes have tended to be small and manageable most of the time.
But let's take a concrete example of a major change. Let's say, for example, that RPM was changed so that you didn't have to list patches in one place any apply them in another; that you could say something like %patch(foo-1.0-fixblah.patch) -p1 in the prep section, and RPM wouldn't need a separate Patch0 foo=1.0-fixblah.patch line to know that the foo-1.0-fixblah.patch file existed and should be packaged.
We wouldn't wait until a version of RHEL had that capability to start to use in in Fedora packages. If you wanted to rebuild the modified packages, you'd have to modify the spec files.
This is probably an area where Red Hat's internal developers should try to "advise" on. Again, it's in Red Hat's own best interest to do so, to keep people buying their RHEL products.
fedora-devel-list is where we'll be talking about any such changes.
I'm looking for, more or less, the ability to add basic applications from Fedora to RHEL.
And it's simply not a promise we're making. It might work on a technical basis, opportunisticaily, though if you replace RHEL3 apps with hand-built ones you'll want to check your SLA wording to see what it does to your support level.
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
Quoting "Michael K. Johnson" johnsonm@redhat.com:
First of all: It did not jump to "3.0". There's no ".0" in it. Just "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3" with no decimal or decimal-ish part.
My ignorance, my apologies.
So from a product marketing standpoint, it is just "3". Will Red Hat maintain an internal/technical designation for revisions at least? E.g., 3.x???
<soap box> I know the industry has this "dot-fobia" right now, but I like it _much_better_ than the whole "service pack" nomenclature. But tag it as you will. ;-ppp </soap box>
There are lots of changes. I think the more interesting questions would probably be what *hasn't* changed. Yes, NPTL is in.
Okay, that would explain the move to 3. I just miss those "good old days" when I could could on the major version to stick with the same GLibC/GCC. I guess that's what we now have in a single 18 month RHEL release, instead of 3 x 6 month RHL releases.
If I tried to present the new features here I'd miss lots of them, even in my area of the kernel.
Understood. I think NPTL says a lot.
I know that our sales force has the capability to talk about the features that have been added.
As always. ;-ppp
At least you don't send out your sales people and have them tell people that they are "engineers." That's the #1 reason why even MCSEs dislike Microsoft.
We're not going to avoid deploying new technology in Fedora just because you want to be able to build Fedora packages on RHEL. :-)
No more than you have done with Rawhide in the past, I know. But if I was Red Hat management, I'd have to believe that by seeing 3rd party packages built to my commercial product, I'd sell more commercial product. But they know
Which brings me to the culmination of a point I wanted to bring up before.
Does Red Hat see either ... 1) Two tags in Fedora -- one for Fedora, one [subset] for RHEL, or 2) Expecting community software projects to release a RHEL version themselves, all while working with Fedora to release one for Fedora
I'm not trying to tell Red Hat what to do. After all, unlike Debian, you have to support what you ship. So that means you're limited in what you can ship. But I think #1 might be in its best interest, from a commercial perspective, to provide a framework for this, to help sell your own RHEL products.
Because the problem with #2 is why people prefer Debian, and might not move to Fedora en masse. #2 still means there is no community built around RHEL, which means there is less incentive for the regular user to purchase it (or worse, purchase SuSE Linux Personal/Professional instead).
If Red Hat does not consider this a market consideration, then I'd understand (and I'm _not_ deamonizing Red Hat here). But I think other people have hit on it. There needs to be a new "consumer" between the new Fedora "enthusiast" and the RHEL "business" products.
So I've suggested that Red Hat consider help supporting a "tag" in Fedora, even if it is a subset, of popular packages for its current RHEL release. That would help Red Hat sell more RHEL WS/ES boxes. I leave it up to Red Hat to decide if the costs of doing such are worth the potential increase in sales of RHEL WS/ES.
If you look historically, the changes have tended to be small and manageable most of the time.
Right. As long as GLibC/GCC doesn't change, most things are accomodated. And given that RHEL release are supposed to be 18 months apart, this is basically what we had with the 3 x 6 month model of X.0 - X.2+.
But let's take a concrete example of a major change. Let's say, for example, that RPM was changed so that you didn't have to list patches in one place any apply them in another; that you could say something like %patch(foo-1.0-fixblah.patch) -p1 in the prep section, and RPM wouldn't need a separate Patch0 foo=1.0-fixblah.patch line to know that the foo-1.0-fixblah.patch file existed and should be packaged. We wouldn't wait until a version of RHEL had that capability to start to use in in Fedora packages. If you wanted to rebuild the modified packages, you'd have to modify the spec files.
And I understand that.
But I also see that preventing people from buying RHEL, because it is no different than what they had before. Now Red Hat could choose to hope that another party picks up that end, or the Fedora community themselves. But given why Fedora now exists, I want to believe Red Hat might consider "unofficially" (i.e. unsupported) maintaining its own "tag sub-set" of the Fedora repositories that easily build on their current version of RHEL.
Do you see where I'm coming from, just a recommendation?
fedora-devel-list is where we'll be talking about any such changes.
FYI, I promise to avoid posting discussions like the above, unless I'm directly supporting a package myself (not likely anytime soon -- as I'm too busy "cert whoring" until probably mid next year, long story ;-).
And it's simply not a promise we're making.
Oh, I guess I should clarify. I'm not expecting Red Hat promise such. It's not feasible for Red Hat to do so.
If there is one thing I _know_ of Red Hat, they make small promises and deliver _more_ than most people expect. So that's all I'm hoping for here.
It might work on a technical basis, opportunisticaily, though if you replace RHEL3 apps with hand-built ones you'll want to check your SLA wording to see what it does to your support level.
The idea here is to _not_ replace anything that RHEL ships. Only _augment_ what is in it. That would make SLA a nightmare for Red Hat, and be self- hindering to support such an effort.
Which is why I'm calling it a "tag subset."
So if that means you can't run the latest GNOME, or a GNOME app that requires the latest GNOME, that's totally understandable. I think I made that known in the other post.
On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 02:48:33PM -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting "Michael K. Johnson" johnsonm@redhat.com:
First of all: It did not jump to "3.0". There's no ".0" in it. Just "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3" with no decimal or decimal-ish part.
My ignorance, my apologies.
No problem, just passing on the message. It's more than just a random change, though; it's actually indicative of what we're doing, and you picked up on that fact further down.
So from a product marketing standpoint, it is just "3". Will Red Hat maintain an internal/technical designation for revisions at least? E.g., 3.x???
We do have updates, but the product version doesn't change. We refer to update levels internally and externally.
Okay, that would explain the move to 3. I just miss those "good old days" when I could could on the major version to stick with the same GLibC/GCC. I guess that's what we now have in a single 18 month RHEL release, instead of 3 x 6 month RHL releases.
Exactly. What we're really doing is catering to the way that people who wanted long cycles wanted to use the product in the first place. You get a few syncronized updates per year, plus security errata, with a syncronized longer-lifetime platform. When we had people using, say, RHL 6.0, RHL 6.1, and RHL 6.2 all with the same gcc and glibc major version, we had to spread update engineering and QA time over three platforms with the same technology. Now, with a single platform per technology set with consistent updates, we can focus our work and provide higher-quality results.
At least you don't send out your sales people and have them tell people that they are "engineers." That's the #1 reason why even MCSEs dislike Microsoft.
Well, we actually *do* have engineers in our sales group, called "sales engineers", to whom technical questions can be referred, and who can ask other engineers when they don't have the answer. But I don't think that is what you are talking about. :-)
Does Red Hat see either ...
- Two tags in Fedora -- one for Fedora, one [subset] for RHEL, or
- Expecting community software projects to release a RHEL version
themselves, all while working with Fedora to release one for Fedora
We're not going to explicitly maintain a Fedora Core release that is compatible with some RHEL version. We're generally expecting that community software projects will be most interested in working with Fedora.
I recognize that this doesn't really answer your question. I'm wondering how much of an issue this is; how much we'll see community projects deployed on RHEL. It hasn't been a big issue so far; we haven't been explicitly maintaining compatibility between RHL and RHEL products in the past and I just haven't been seeing it as a big issue.
I think we concentrate on this: if it's a community project, we're thinking open source, and people deploying it outside of the context of installing a distribution seem to be building from source more than installing random binaries, and for well-built products, it really should just build wherever...
Do you see where I'm coming from, just a recommendation?
Yes, I understand the recommendation.
And it's simply not a promise we're making.
Oh, I guess I should clarify. I'm not expecting Red Hat promise such. It's not feasible for Red Hat to do so.
If there is one thing I _know_ of Red Hat, they make small promises and deliver _more_ than most people expect. So that's all I'm hoping for here.
I'm glad that our desire to under-promise and over-deliver is visible.
Hmm.
What you really need isn't a distribution, it's a buildroot. Something you can chroot into to build packages that would work in that distribution. No point in having separate OS installations for every case.
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
Quoting "Michael K. Johnson" johnsonm@redhat.com:
We're not going to explicitly maintain a Fedora Core release that is compatible with some RHEL version. We're generally expecting that community software projects will be most interested in working with Fedora.
Correct. But it does add a small, additional burden for those that do want to release RHEL packages. In fact, it largely benefits Red Hat if they do. that was, more or less, my point. It's hard to know how to accomodate properly.
I recognize that this doesn't really answer your question. I'm wondering how much of an issue this is; how much we'll see community projects deployed on RHEL.
And I don't know the answer either. In fact, I think Red Hat knows better than I can even stab at.
To "narrow" my comments, after re-educating myself, I'm largely talking about Fedora "Extras" (not Fedora "Core," "Alternatives" or anything else).
It hasn't been a big issue so far; we haven't been explicitly maintaining compatibility between RHL and RHEL products in the past and I just haven't been seeing it as a big issue.
And I agree with you. But I want to offer up something. The reason why you didn't see much reason to is that most people didn't see value in moving to RHEL when RHL "did-the-job" -- e.g., supported for 2 years, etc... So they just ran RHL.
Now everything changes with Fedora. We now have only RHEL that is being supported 1+ years. So this may drive more people to RHEL WS/ES. If they know they can get most of the "common" software from Fedora "Extras" to run on RHEL, then RHEL WS/ES should ensure even more copies.
So I guess I'm talking about a 2nd tag on _only_ Fedora "Extras." Maybe an old throw-back to the separate "Powertools," only now for RHEL. Unsupported by Red Hat, but available. I guess as you mentioned before, there _might_ be some issues with how SLAs are handled, but I still see it as doable.
I think we concentrate on this: if it's a community project, we're thinking open source, and people deploying it outside of the context of installing a distribution seem to be building from source more than installing random binaries, and for well-built products, it really should just build wherever...
And that's my hope too.
I'm glad that our desire to under-promise and over-deliver is visible.
It is not only visible, but nothing disturbs me more when other people don't see it. I find I defend Red Hat almost weekly when people don't. It's more of that "hate #1" attitude I see all over the place. E.g., there is plenty of things to complain about Microsoft, but 90% of what I see out of people is just "hate #1" attitude and not a very good argument.
Hmm. What you really need isn't a distribution, it's a buildroot. Something you can chroot into to build packages that would work in that distribution. No point in having separate OS installations for every case.
[ TheBS sees a beam of light ... ahhh ... ]
Hmmm, that's not quite where I was going, but it made me think of something else. Maybe you should ship UML in RHEL and encourage Fedora to accomodate the few details to make sure it works with it. I'm not an UML guru, but this sounds like a possible solution (provided you have the extra memory/resources so your system can handle it)?
Hi,
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 21:11, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
What you really need isn't a distribution, it's a buildroot. Something you can chroot into to build packages that would work in that distribution. No point in having separate OS installations for every case.
[ TheBS sees a beam of light ... ahhh ... ]
Hmmm, that's not quite where I was going, but it made me think of something else. Maybe you should ship UML in RHEL and encourage Fedora to accomodate the few details to make sure it works with it. I'm not an UML guru, but this sounds like a possible solution (provided you have the extra memory/resources so your system can handle it)?
Just using "chroot" should be enough. I've got distributions back as far as 5.2 on my local build box and can chroot into any one of those at any time.
And with "mount --bind", I've got scripts which will copy existing mount points such as /proc, /home/sct and /usr/src/redhat/BUILD into the chroot environment, so all the files I'm working on remain accessible there. I still have a need every so often to build stuff that can't be built on anything more recent than RHL 7.2, so this technique gets exercised regularly here.
UML has a performance overhead that chroot largely avoids (as long as you've got enough physical memory to keep both the chroot distro and your main desktop in memory at once.)
Cheers, Stephen
What does the $250 for Solaris include? Last I checked they charge extra for C/C++ tools like most other UNIX distributions.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Holden" dh@iucr.org To: fedora-list@redhat.com; "Benjamin J. Weiss" benjamin@Weiss.name; "Alexandre Oliva" aoliva@redhat.com Cc: fedora-list@redhat.com Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 4:16 AM Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator
On Wednesday 01 Oct 2003 1:43 am, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
You may want to convince him to join the Fedora Legacy project. Or, if he wants something supported by Red Hat for a longer period, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Which came at a cost. Who paid for that?
We did, in a way.
We ran RHL for small servers (such as our static web server) and RHEL
for
serious servers (RHAS 2.1 with Oracle 9i for our database server.)
The *only* reason that my boss went with RHEL was because I was able to show him with RHL on small servers that it was stable and powerful.
There is no way that we're gonna be able to pay for RHEL for all of the small servers that we maintain.
Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of
True64
and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and
my
boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
Damnit, I love RH and *really* don't like Solaris. *sigh*
I know that RH is trying to stay profitable. I understand and wish them the best. They've done an *outstanding* job. I just hope and pray that they haven't shot themselves in the foot here. I know that we will be trying to find an alternative before up2date stops working for RH9. :(
Ben
If redhat can only stay solvent by charging $349 for there stable linux (remember thats the "cheap" version isn't AS > $1000) I find it very
worrying
for the competitiveness of Linux generally. In the short term I think they will make more money from people who will find it too costly to move to another OS but in the longer term I think they will lose a lot of
business.
Dave.
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Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of True64
Tru64(aka dead os) is going to disapear soon, in favor of HP-UX.
and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and my boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
Solaris x86 is not so well supported, all enterprise features are for SPARC edition. And UNIX RISC boxes are _expensive_
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
RHEL gets more supported software than others OS(Solaris, AIX, HP-UX...), like postgesql, zebra,.... It doesn't is a real comparative.
On Wed, 2003-10-01 at 10:08, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
Another guy at work has been trying to get us to go to a mixture of True64
Tru64(aka dead os) is going to disapear soon, in favor of HP-UX.
and Solaris. Now that RH is *more* expensive on x86 than Solaris, and my boss is an old Solaris/SPARC admin....well, you get the idea.
Solaris x86 is not so well supported, all enterprise features are for SPARC edition. And UNIX RISC boxes are _expensive_
Yes make sure you read the fine print of what is covered by Solaris x86 at 250.00.. it is not as simple and clean as a price difference does. But then again.. it was never really fair to compare a 49.99 installation support only boxed set to a 250.00 commercial support solaris in the first place.. but many linux heads did so.
List price for Solaris 9 Workgroup server is $250 US. List price for RHEL ES is $349 US.
RHEL gets more supported software than others OS(Solaris, AIX, HP-UX...), like postgesql, zebra,.... It doesn't is a real comparative.
In the windows list I subscribe to we have a number of users that take 18 months just to get the roll-out completed once they begin rolling out a new version.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Benjamin J. Weiss Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 7:31 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator
Fedora lifetime is from 6 to 9 *months* http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
I would like to see an extension of 6 months more, more or less. At least for _base_(kernel....) components.
Whoa! Am I reading this correctly? Approximately nine months after a version is released, apt/yum/up2date will stop working for a release? Holy shit, my boss is gonna can this distro completely!
At least with RHL we had *some* stability....*sigh*
Ben
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