Re: it's so disappointing

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To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 14:45:14 -0800

On Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:25:51 -0400
"Joe Polk" <listuser@javelinux.com> wrote:

> And I believe that's exactly what I said. (Is it me?) I simply added that I
> don't like it. :) They've decided to move on. Great. I'm contemplating the
> same.
>
> <<JAV>>

---- Original message from Joe -----

"Joe Polk" <listuser@javelinux.com> wrote:
> I would agree that "disappointed" may be a bit off-base, but don't discount
> the reality here. I too am disappointed. I've noticed RH's trend for some
> time. I don't agree with those who see this as something "noble" and
> how "greatful we should be for Fedora." Hey, Fedora may be great. It may be
> the best thing since sliced bread. That's beside the point. It's a bone, to a
> certain extent, from RH. In my opinion, they want the community to make the
> strides towards the desktop for them. To a degree, that's how Open Source
> works, and I understand that. I also understand that this is a business
> decision, just like the blue jean plant closing in Hometown, USA. But don't
> preach to me about how RH is still a beloved member of the community. They
> are a business and now almost exclusively so. There's nothing wrong with that
> and I wish them well. I agree that to a great extent RH doing well as a
> business will eventually help Linux as a whole. None of that takes away the
> taste of disgust at such comments as "for now, Windows is best for the end
> user" (true or not, you don't hand your enemy a weapon like that...see other
> posts). I paid for almost every version of RH I have. I prefered to go to
> CompUSA and buy the boxed set to show my support. I had stock in RH. I
> believed in them. They didn't believe in me. They are saying "your patronage
> is just too insignificant compared to Widgets Inc." They may be right, but it
> doesn't make me as a customer feel any better then "hey, chump, go run
> Windows. You're better off right now anyway." That's what RH is telling us,
> we're just not worth they're effort.

Disagree with your viewpoint here, in particular the statements "But don't
preach to me about how RH is still a beloved member of the community." and
"They didn't believe in me. They are saying "your patronage is just too
insignificant compared to Widgets Inc." They may be right, but it doesn't
make me as a customer feel any better then "hey, chump, go run
Windows. You're better off right now anyway." That's what RH is telling us,
we're just not worth they're effort."

Red Hat's developers are a significant part of the Fedora staff, doing the work and development on the distribution there. They're still working on RPM (and giving it away), they're still working on Anaconda (and giving it away), they're still keeping people on staff who's job description is "work on (kernel, XFree86, other) components and give the results away. That's what you're paid to do." And from this you get to a point of saying that Red Hat is telling you you're just not worth their effort?

As others have pointed out, what's changed is that the "free" distribution is no longer Red Hat, it's Fedora. It's at least partially controlled outside RH, but they still provide paid staff and other support for it. There's still a "for pay" product out there, from Red Hat. But you can't now download and run for free an official Red Hat product. You can't purchase a single copy of a RH product and load it onto every machine you, your neighbors, and the local LUG happen to possess.

To this point the worst thing I can say about Red Hat's decisions is that communications have been less than satisfactory, that a clear, comprehensive message about what's been going on, why, and what the different classes of end users can to to get the sam level of support that they've enjoyed in the past. I fail to see where I've been "abandoned" at all. I suspect I'll end up buying RHPW in the near future, but I'll pull a copy of Fedora and have a go at contributing something there, too.

As for Fedora, why not do what I'm doing? Set up another partition, load Fedora/SuSE/whatever on that partition, and do some comparisons. Then make a choice about what meets your needs and/or curls your nosehair.

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