On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 12:03:16PM -0500, David Krider scripsit:
> My intent wasn't to troll, but to get some serious reaction to the
> alternatives out there. I'm not the only one on this list who is
> reconsidering their use of RedHat linux.
I don't understand what you're complaining about.
The same 'Red Hat' is going to keep on being there; it will stay
free-for-download. Just because the version you are using goes off the
end of its support life cycle doesn't mean you won't be able to get
current packages and recompile them for critical things, or find where
someone else has and download from there.
If you want the actual integration effort from Red Hat, yeah, you need
to subscribe to it. (the integration effort, not the distribution.)
Since you've gone to a bunch of public trouble to say that this
integration effort is valuable, I'm not at all sure why paying for it is
objectionable, especially not in a business context where being able to
say 'paid support for <time period>' is a selling point. (I can see 'do
I have to?', or 'I think that's overpriced!', but 400 bucks is one day
of your time *or less*; if having the subscription saves you that, it
was worth it.)
This strikes me as a really quite good business model; it doesn't muck
with GPL issues at all, it's clear about what it's selling, it makes it
clear that RH is willing to compete on *product*, rather than "it's
free!", an essential step in widespread market success, and it could
well keep RH in the black.
There is no middle ground between stable and current; there never, ever,
has been. Either you are current, or you are stable. If you want
stable, you have to check a tedious great lot of stuff, or pay someone
to do it for you. RH is offering a system where you can automate paying
someone else to do it for you, basically, while continuing to provide
'current' as a side effect of their own internal ongoing integration
development needs.
The tendency of current Linux to be in general pretty stable (by PC
standards) doesn't change this; if you want real values of stable, you
have to do the testing and integration work, and you have to provide the
necessary opportunity for learning experiences, in terms of span of time
and amount of use.
RH figuring out that they can stop trying to do both at once, that
delicate and ultimately futile balancing act, and make the one support
the other (in both directions) strikes me as a very good thing.
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