On Thu, 2006-10-26 at 14:58 -0600, Bryan Sant wrote: > If CentOS were bigger, they could have really hurt Red Hat too.
As a CentOS user and a fan of Red Hat, I respectfully disagree. Without Red Hat, CentOS is nothing. CentOS *helps* Red Hat by further BETA testing RH's "enterprise" offerings. The kinda of people that use CentOS don't make good customers; They either don't *need/want* support or can't *afford* it. If Red Hat were go tomorrow, CentOS would be right behind them. It's kinda like the "piracy" of the Open Source world, in that, the Big Boys know it really doesn't hurt them. They allow it (and secretly like it) because it grooms the users into future customers when they eventually enter a position that requires them to use a supported version of the software. Don't get me wrong, stealing crumby proprietary software and re-branding an Open Source Linux distribution are *not* comparable - allowing them just achieves the same thing. The Oracle thing is different and much more of a real problem (one that you can't just give the "wink-n-nod"). I suspect it will be bad for Red Hat, but good for Linux in the end (*only after* you get past the fact that anything that hurts RH, hurts Linux in the short term). The GPL doesn't protect corporations, it protects the software, its creators and its users. There's *no* question that Red Hat understands this. They've no doubt evaluated this situation and many others that threaten their business model. As you've stated, "beat-you-at-your-own- game-with-your-own-product" has always been an issue and they've handled it well. It'll hurt, but it'll be O.K. BIG thanks to Red Hat for all you do. I wish you luck. When I'm not poor, and when I own a business that needs top-notch support, you'll get my money. Until then, I only have the 2 cents offered here, Gabe /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
