A request for RedHat 8.0 continued support...

[Edmund White]

I'm the systems engineer for a software company whose product is bundled 
with Redhat Linux and HP Proliant servers. The recent Redhat changes are 
bad news for our product. For the past few years, we've migrated former 
AIX, SCO and HP-UX customers to HP/Compaq servers with appropriate 
versions of Redhat (7.x, 8) and our software on top. Luckily, the software 
is easily portable and can run unmodified on any unix variant. Redhat 7.2, 
7.3 and 8.0 have proven to be the best match for our software/hardware 
solution. The hardcore Compaq/HP Proliant server hardware support (for 
ML370's and ML570's) is there. HP's agents add temperature, SCSI/array and 
environment monitoring to the Redhat setup. The OSes are stable. We use(d) 
up2date to keep on top of security patches (openssh, openssl and sendmail 
are my only concerns). It was nice because we could give the customer a 
real Redhat box with media and manuals (not that they used it... but it's 
nice to have the packaging). As a vendor/reseller, we paid for the boxed 
media and of course, the Redhat Network subscriptions.

Now, I have 100+ Linux servers around the country, and a stream of new
customers. I've frozen new deployments at Redhat 8.0 because Redhat 9 was
a bit unstable for us and didn't allow me to use the HP/Compaq-specific
hardware agents/drivers. So, we've everything from 7.0 through 8.0 in the
field. Over the past few months, Redhat dropped up2date support and
patches for Redhat 7.0. I feel guilty installing 8.0 on new boxes because
I know support for it will be dropped at the end of the year. By Dec. 31,
all of my systems will be "unsupported." This looks awful because we're
starting to get more corporate customers, and I've receiving calls from
their CTO's like, "wait, we want to make sure you'll be installing a
SUPPORTED version of Linux if we buy your application." Grrr....

I don't wish to buy into Redhat's Enterprise Linux because I don't 
understand what I'm paying for. *I'm* the Redhat support. I just need 
something that will receive patches and support for more than one year. 
The 5 year lifespan of the Enterprise versions is nice, but I've NEVER 
called Redhat for support. I don't plan to.

I also build the kernels for each of the servers. I use vanilla kernel.org 
2.4.21 source with additional XFS patches. We sell 2, 4 and 8-way Proliant 
servers. Am I missing out on anything from the "optimized" Redhat Advanced 
Server kernels? I downloaded the RHEL 3.0 kernel and looked at the 200+ 
patches they make to the plain 2.4.21 source. Other than the 
hyperthreading patch, none of the enhancements will make that much of a 
difference in my company's application. Would using my stable kernel setup 
with RHEL negate the purpose of using that OS? Patching XFS on TOP of 
their already heavily-modified kernel is close to impossible.

I think it's confusing because we initially chose Redhat for the 
accountability aspect of having a corporation behind the distro. Now, I'm 
not sure who they're targeting. I would imagine that most firms that 
select Redhat Advanced server and are willing to pay the price 
(>$1000/license) would have a staff talented enough to support it. So why 
the mandatory support costs from Redhat? It's a bad move because 7.2, 7.3 
and 8.0 are great matches for our hardware. HP's support for RHAS 2.1 is 
even a bit spotty (old kernel, etc.), so HP concentrated in supporting 
8.0. I'm afraid to recommend RHEL 3.0 for these critical servers because 
the userbase is going to be tiny, and we'll essentially be flushing-out 
bugs..... in production. That's not a good situation.... * Sidenote: After 
looking at Redhat's Enterprise kernel's default .config, I'm surprised 
that they still enable HAM radio, PCMCIA, ISDN and other rarely-used (at 
least in the US) functions by default. I mean, I choose to compile my own 
kernels.... but I'm pretty sure that their target market for RHEL won't 
bother. Odd.

Either way, since these servers are humming along without incident, I 
don't have much motivation to reinstall and move to an untested (by my 
application's need) RHEL. Having continued support for RedHat 8 would be 
very useful for those in my situation. I know this project is in its 
infacy, but I think that 7.2-9.0 are must-support distributions. Please 
advise.

-- 
Edmund William White
http://www.djedwhite.com
ewwhite at mac.com