Re: The answers to these "Death of RedHat threads"..
From: Jacob Heider (lord-jacob_at_comcast.net)
Date: 11/06/03
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Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 05:04:59 GMT
On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 07:09:19 -0500, Laura Darragh wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:55:36 +0000, Jacob Heider wrote:
>
>
>> Four to six. And they claim they will continue to make security
>> enhancements for 6 months after. That's nearly a year between needed
>> upgrades.
>
> Jacob, where I come from, six months is half a year. Not 'nearly a year'.
4-6 months till next release, plus six months of updates = nearly a year.
>
> I'm used to two years. Six months and two years is a big difference.
>
>
> Further, since this is a community supported product, I fully
>> expect to see security upgrades back-ported to whatever earlier
>> versions of Fedora still command a strong following in the field.
>
> I'd agree with you on that, if I believed the RH "community" was
> supportive of Redhat. But thus far, I'm getting bad jives from the
> 'community' who seem to be looking elsewhere.
>
There's some vocal people out there, but most people aren't going to
abandon RH.
> It just seems to me that Redhat is sort of tossing out a bone to the
> 'community' without any meat on that bone. That's a big expectation on
> their part, wouldn't you think? Especially when there's a good number of
> the community that's pissed right at them right now?
>
People are afraid of change. When Fedora is released (Real Soon Now(TM))
we'll see the reality.
>
> <snip>
>>
>> Linux is for everybody. I understand that small businesses are going to
>> take the largest hit from this,
>
> There are more small businesses than there are large businesses, though,
> Jacob. If you had a business model that attracted more small business
> than large business.. even then, if a small business disappears, you've
> not taken a huge hit. If you focus on large business, and one of them
> disappears.. you could be in trouble.
>
>
>> but I still don't think it will be as bad as all the doom-sayers are
>> choosing to make it. Redhat is doing what, in large part, their
>> customer base wants.
>
> I don't agree, respectfully. I think they are after different business
> now. Their customer base is mostly us small people. Maybe they are
> applying the 80/20 rule.. but I think that someone else put it best..
> they can try changing, but that 80/20 rule will still apply... which
> means they now have a smaller customer base to make the 80/20 rule
> apply. It will still apply.. only on a smaller scale.
>
>
> They are giving them more control
>> over the progress of the distribution, and making it grow faster, and
>> incorporate more cutting-edge technology.
>
> Yes. and it will be the small people like me that will be doing the
> testing of this cutting edge stuff, and losing or gaining on the
> customer base.
>
But Red Hat Linux was designed to be "cutting-edge" stuff which was later
to be moved into Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They only difference is they
are giving us more control over the direction and quality.
> I also agree that it looks bad
>> now, but I'm betting that because of all of use out here who like Red
>> Hat, Fedora is going to very a very stable, very well-maintained and
>> community supported operating system.
>
> That's a good bet. Never underestimate the intuition of a woman though.
> Your logic may seem right.. but intuitively, it makes no sense, if they
> are pissing people off.. the community won't be there.
>
> They are going against the very grain of community. They are using the
> word 'community' in one side of their mouth, but in the other side, they
> are simply using them. You think the 'community' will stand for this
> very long?
>
I think the community, by and large, is getting what it wants: more access
to the development of Red Hat Linux (now Fedora).
> They have to give something back to the community more than just test
> casing. Otherwise, the community will find other places to commune.
>
>
>> It's unnecessary to pay for up2date at all. It is trivial to use apt
>> (http://ayo.freshrpms.net) and cron to keep your system up-to-date. I
>> stopped using the rhn applet as soon as apt-rpm was available, and I
>> haven't looked back.
>
> Yes, I realize it is unecessary to pay. You missed my point. I have
> CHOSEN, in the past, to pay, as a matter of principle and support. Now,
> they want me to pay more.. for what extra benefit?
>
If you don't want to pay more, for a version of their operating system
_more_ geared towards businesses than the free version was, then don't.
Continue to use the free version (now Fedora) and believe that since
everyone else is concerned with security updates, they will be there. I
wouldn't be surprised to see community maintenance for the existing
versions, as well.
> Well.. for the benefits they are taking away from me.
>
> yes.. I know there are free loaders out there, and want everything for
> 'free'. And I know that's not the way to do it.. on the other hand, I
> think Redhat is giving up a great opportunity to use the grassroots
> support it had, in order to continue on with their 80/20 business model.
>
What they are trying to do, is make _greater_ use of their grassroots
support, by giving those people more access to the development.
> As mentioned, I, and many others, would have been willing to pay more
> for what we got, every year. But thousands more? By asking for
> thousands more, they are loosing themselves of thousands, if not
> millions, of customers.
>
Not thousands. $179, IIRC.
> Ask 100,000 customers to pay ten bucks more. To each custoemr, it's
> only ten bucks. To the vendor though, that's a million more.
>
> They don't seem to have gotten that part of it.
>
> Ask some enterprise customers to pay hundreds more.. and watch as some
> do.. but many switch.
>
>> They think they're doing what their customer base wants. Many of us are
>> happy to be able to have more control. Many others like me will
>> maintain and back-port updates to fedoras that continue to live on in
>> the field. I'm extremely skeptical as to "fact" that you'll need to
>> upgrade your fedora install more often than you've been upgrading Red
>> Hat Linux.
>
> I think that they are misunderstanding who their customer base is. Their
> customer base is only partly the enterprises that are running two
> hundred servers.
>
> The majority of their customer base are less than ten servers. But,
> they just haven't counted as much.
>
They know. And we want more access, to make Fedora stronger than Red Hat
Linux was, with less turnaround for security fixes, better support for new
hardware, etc.
>
>> Do you think there will be better support for Gentoo? Mandrake or SuSE
>> are your best bets if you don't believe community support will cut it.
>> No one knows how long SuSE will be cheap, and I've always felt mandrake
>> played it too fast and loose with package inclusion in their distro. I
>> will be very suprised, and will offer a full apology with whatever
>> public abasement is required, if fedora is not as stable, usable, and
>> supported (although not be Red Hat) as Red Hat Linux was.
>
> No need to grovel with apologies and public debasements, Jacob :) The
> problem is, uncertainty. Over the past years, there's been a certain
> expectation, which is now no longer there with Fedora. Who knows if
> there will be support in updates, available in a timely manner? It's all
> prediction on our part.
>
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/faq, eighth question says that Red Hat will
continue to provide security fixes and updates for Fedora.
> I used to be able to go to my clients and make recommendations based on
> RH history. There is no Fedora history. So, to answer you question, I
> have no idea if Gentoo will provide the same as what I have had in the
> past. I also have no idea if RH will.
>
Fedora history is Red Hat history. It's the same code base, just being
exposed. Security fixes in debian occur _very_ quickly...
> But when examining the philosophies.. which is all I have, and the
> recent events, I'm left to belive that Redhat really isn't all that
> concerned about the Fedora users, and so much so, they've even changed
> the name and branding of this product.
>
> So here's me, using Fedora, and administering a server for my client.
> And something happens because it's bleeding edge stuff, and there are no
> updates available as I have not upgraded to the latest version in the
> past 8 months.
>
> And along comes some RH vendor and says to my client.. well.. you really
> should be using what I have available.. this RH product.. yeah.. Fedora
> is ok.. but it ain't RedHat.
>
> So, now I look like an amateur because it's not really Redhat.. it's
> Fedora.
>
> And that is just one scenario. There are many many others that I could
> think of, but will dispense with right now.
>
> The fact of the matter is, for the past several years, I have not been
> promoting Fedora to my clients. I have been promoting Redhat. And I
> haven't got a cent from Redhat for doing so. But now they are in a
> position to take my good will that I've given them, away from me.
>
> And they're not prepared any longer to offer me any type of useful
> support for 1.5 or 2 years.. as I have counted on for giving them my
> goodwill in the past.
>
> That's the problem. I feel used by the men in red hats. I've been
> their little pawn for the past few years, helping them make a name for
> themself, and in return, I get zilch back as far as stability. I've
> helped make them stable, and have done my part to help them stay in the
> black with their books while promoting their red hattedness.. and I end
> up like with no clothes, and feeling mighty chilly here.
>
> And believe me.. I HAVE helped Redhat make a name for themself, having
> introduced many many small enterprises to Redhat. And all I get in
> return from them is some promise to be a beta tester, with the hope that
> the 'community' will still rally around them? That's not a lot of hope
> to build my business on, Jacob.
>
Fedora C1 is (or would have been) RH10. It is still overseen by RH, and
it's in RH's best interest to keep it stable and popular, since it is
where they will be testing things that will go into the Enterprise
version. I agree that the rebranding will probably turn out to be a
mistake. However, there's no good reason not to refer to the new project
as Red Hat Fedora, if you are concerned about name-recognition among you
clients.
>
>
>> That's ok. It's nearly 6am where I'm sitting, and I didn't just wake
> up...
>
> So what have you been doing all night? Tipping your fedora?
>
> Laura
Reading up... the more research I do, the more confident I am Fedora is
going to be a better product (in the long run) than Red Hat Linux. I
understand your concerns, but there has been a lot of negativity about
this move, and it's not going to be as bad as people think. If you
still feel the need to change, I _guarantee_ there will be many pages
about migrating from Red Hat Linux to various other distros popping up in
the coming weeks and months...
Jacob
- Next message: Hugo Drax: "Re: The answers to these "Death of RedHat threads".."
- Previous message: opus: "Notes from a Debian user"
- In reply to: Laura Darragh: "Re: The answers to these "Death of RedHat threads".."
- Next in thread: Jim: "Re: The answers to these "Death of RedHat threads".."
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