RE: [tlug] Redhat

["James Cluff" <jc@example.com>]

>Interesting observation. Breen's Law(TM) says you shouldn't use a RH
>distro until the "y" of "x.y" is >= 2. I've been on 7.3 for 12 months,
>and 7.2 for 6 months before that. It is pretty solid - my systems have
>been up for 2 and 3 weeks respectively. I never intended to move to 8
>until it reached 8.2, and when it quickly became 9 I felt justified.
>The number of changes in 9 are a little worrying.

I have no complaints about redhat, I just wondered what they where doing in
the future, and if it was something strange that would force me into paying
a lot for there server versions - more than windows 2000 server I believe,
or work on unsuported versions.  I have two 7.3 machines I have never seen
in a hosting environment which I only rebooted one time when I updated the
kernel last week, that is about a year with zero problems.  Other than that
they have been up 100 percent without a problem.  I also have a windows 2000
server in the same facility which I have rebooted many many times ( of
course)

I have an 8.0 machine which I do development on on my desk at work and two
9.0 machines one of which I do development on outside of work and one dual
boot which I use for a home mp3 player, development , file server and games
for my kids.  I have been very happy.

It is only that I see changes comming up and I don't know what they are
going to be yet or how it will work out, so it naturally  makes me uneasy.
I feel like Redhat is trying to get read of freeloaders (right word?) like
myself who are not paying for the Enterprise Server licenses, (because we
see no need to buy an Enterprise version) by stopping support for other
versions.  So the future is a closed source or a licensed version of redhat
and an unsuported or perhaps community supported version of redhat?

I don't mind paying for the update services and stuff, but making it more
expensive than windows makes it harder to sell to the company I work for.

I guess I don't need to worry cause the last 47 was it? emails present
plenty of other options, which is great, I suppose it is the diversity in
Linux that makes it great.  I can switch linux distributions or even to BSD
or some other Unix Variant and still run most of my code, with little
changes.

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 or at least Redhat wants us to think that by not releasing 8.#
9.# or probably even 10.# versions.

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.

Thanks

James