[ale] Fedora and RHN?

[Dow Hurst]

I bet if you looked at the numbers, that RedHat's income is primarily 
derived from corporate support.  I wouldn't bet that the boxed set 
actually brought in large amounts of income.
Dow


Michael D. Hirsch wrote:

>On Thursday 06 November 2003 03:26 pm, Stuffed Crust wrote:
>  
>
>>On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 06:49:56AM -0600, Preston Boyington wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>>Personally, I am now looking for a new *nix distro to run my servers
>>>>on.  I've been a supporter of Redhat for my server solutions
>>>>for a while
>>>>now, but $179/year minimum is too rich for me, sad to say.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Debian...
>>>      
>>>
>>Question.  How is Fedora Core 1 any different from, say, RedHat Linux 9?
>>
>>People are complaining about how Redhat isn't supporting non-enterprise
>>users any more, bla bla bla.. but.. they didn't support Joe Random
>>Downloader anyway.  If you wanted support from RH you had to pay for it
>>before, be it in the form of a boxed set or a commercial/enterprise
>>arrangement or whatever.
>>
>>If you were already paying RH money, you'll keep paying 'em money.  If
>>you weren't paying 'em money before, you don't have to pay 'em a dime to
>>continue receiving the same level of support they always provided -- ie,
>>none.  In short, nothing has changed.
>>
>>What has changed from the user's perspective?  s/RedHat/Fedora/g
>>That's it.
>>    
>>
>
>Um, no.  I support my Dad's linux box, and we supported linux by buying the 
>boxed set.  Call it $50 every other year, or so.  In exchange we got printed 
>docs, a little bit of support, a stable platform, the knowledge that RH will 
>provide me with security updates, and we get to run the same code RedHat 
>sells to companies.  To continue will cost $179/year (discounted to $89.50 
>until April--so act now) about 600% of the original cost (only 300% with the 
>discount!).
>
>If I go with Fedora I get no printed docs, no support, a less stable platform 
>(in the sense that it is intended to be more cutting edge and have more 
>frequent updates--not that it will crash), and I'll be running code that RH 
>doesn't think is ready to ship to crporate users.  I would guess that Fedora 
>will be just as proactive about pushing out updates, though they are only 
>saying they will support each release for a few months after the next one is 
>out--call it 8-10 months.  RH supported 6.x with security updates for years!
>
>I think that RH has shot itself in the foot.  The core of RH's business came 
>from people that had been using RH at home or on the side because they could 
>download it for free.  These people end up using it at work and then 
>convincing mgmt to pay RH for it.  It was the standard drug dealer marketing 
>campaign--give out free sample then change once your customers are hooked.
>
>RH has lost the ability to seduce new users.  yes, there is still Fedora, but 
>the impression is that Fedora is not RH so even if Fedora is just as popular 
>as RH was, transfering from Fedora to RH will not be the no brainer going 
>from RH to RH was.
>
>Michael
>
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>Ale at ale.org
>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>  
>

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Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
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