Re: [tlug] Redhat

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 12:10:56PM +0900, James Cluff wrote:

>I feel like Redhat is trying to get read of freeloaders (right word?) like

Whatever they are trying to get rid of (red ink, I suspect), this
draconian approach is proving pretty successful at getting rid
of the class of people that put RH where it is today - professional
and serious amateur Linux users.  Between Bluecrud, one-year EOL,
and the outrageous price of Enterprise Red Hat (as you note,
it's as high or higher than Microsoft's products, which makes
RH a very hard sell), I just can't see any reason to move to,
or even keep, Red Hat in most situations.  If I had to run Oracle
on Linux I might go with RH, but that's the only scenario that 
immediately comes to mind.

>Thanks for your opinions.  I guess we have to wait and see.  I use to
>believe in Breen's law, and most of my friends did too, but I think it is
>old school

It's not old school, it's still very valid.  Don't trust anyone
who tells you otherwise, esp. if that person is a marketer from
Red Hat.  Red Hat is just trying to force you to upgrade via
one-year EOL on the FTP version.  WRT 9.0, that point-zero really
is justified.  The changes from RH 8 to RH 9 are quite significant;
9.0 is not simply 8.1 by any other name.  I suspect there will
be a 9.1, and from there it will probably go to 10.0.

>I think their marketing guys must have more pull than their technologie
>guys, which is perhaps good for company profits short term but not good for
>users people - profits long term.

It's not good for the product, either.  When marketing has too
much power and engineering too little, quality goes down the
toilet.  The trouble with this RH Enterprise push and the one-year
EOL is that Red Hat appears to be moving from being the distro
of newbies and middle-core people (and quite a few professionals)
to being the distro of suits.  I expect the PHB in Dilbert to
be using Red Hat any day now :-p

Jonathan
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