Giovanni Tairov wrote: > I guess it is time to find a different distro. If the company's top > management fails to see the importance of promoting and developing Linux > for home users - then nothing good will come out of such company.
I see your point. I'm not entirely comfortable about RedHat's decision either, but I accept it as their way of pursuing their business interests. I guess they compared the relative incomes from both home and corporate users, counted the totals, and made their decision based on that. Of course the corporate market is more profitable. This is a good thing, when it is all said and done. The open source software industry is growing and maturing, and sacrifices such as these are necessary in order to compete with Microsoft Windows in the corporate marketplace. If this means that RedHat's decision will cause it to remain in business, then it also means that RedHat will use its considerable resources to continue to develop and add to the collection of GPL source code. And this is the most important consideration. > "Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Linux vendor Red Hat, said on Monday > that although Linux is capable of exceeding expectations for corporate > users, home users should stick with Windows" I don't agree with this at all, but Szulik has the right to say whatever stupid things he wishes. RedHat is not the spokesperson for Linux. Linus is and he wisely stays far away from such idiocy. Maybe Szulik is trying to curry favor with Microsoft? Maybe Microsoft is secretly hinting to RedHat that they wish to buy it out? The future is getting more interesting all the time. Look at it this way: the other Linux distros aimed at home users are now having a party. The 600 lb gorilla has moved on to another grove of banana trees, leaving the 400, 200 and the myriad 100 lb gorillas (and monkeys) free to try its luck. Maybe, just maybe, RedHat took a look at both the home and corporate markets and decided that it couldn't please both and that its image as the most popular Linux distro was keeping other great distros from penetrating the home market. I've recommended RedHat in the past for newbies/home users due to the relatively easy (at the time) install, but the ease of RedHat's installation has now been surpassed by other Linux distributions: Xandros, Lindows, Mepis, and probably a slew of others I don't even know about yet. If the intent is to beat Windows at their own game, then that is, to use Rumfeld's phrase, "a long, hard slog". How did the Fellowship of the Ring defeat Sauron? They didn't knock on the gates of Mordor and taunt Sauron to come out and fight. That would be a lot more entertaining, but eventually suicide. Instead, they snuck two hobbits in to destroy Sauron. This is what Linux has done: Linux has snuck into the Sanctum Sanctorum of the IT industry - the enterprise server market, and is growing by leaps and bounds there. The logical conclusion is that Microsoft will become exclusively a home entertainment company by 2010, and the IT industry will regain control of its computing destiny. John Hebert John Hebert
