[ale] Fedora and RHN?

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Thursday 06 November 2003 04:29 pm, Dow Hurst wrote:
> 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

My claim is that they got all that corporate support because they were so 
dominant on the desktop.  The IT cheif asks what RH to use and the real 
techies say "Well, I'm running RH at home so I know how to maintain it."  
That's the main reason we haven't used Debian anywhere I've worked--everyone 
know how to play RedHat.  That's gonna change, now.

Michael

> 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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