RHEL Desktop

[Preston Crawford]

On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 08:57, Chris Spencer wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 10:14, Preston Crawford wrote:
> > That's why I went with Fedora instead of buying this. I'd love to
> > continue to support OSS with my dollars, but not if I'm going to be told
> > I can't run Samba or MySQL or Apache for development on my box. This
> > kind of arbitrary breakdown in licensing is what Microsoft does and is
> > part of why I prefer Linux instead and don't use MS any longer.
> 
> They aren't telling you that you can't run Samba, MySQL, or Apache for
> production on that box.
> 
> They are just not rolling out the packages or offering the superior
> service options.

Is it just service or is it that they don't offer the packages? Because,
see, that's what I used to pay for when I paid for Linux distributions.
I paid money (over $700, I think, over the years just for me) so that
the distributor would provide me with updates and patches for all the
software I ran. If some company is going to suddenly decide that
something is a server and something is a desktop and leave me on my own
to update Samba, MySQL, Apache, etc. then I might as well just go with
something like Fedora and save my money. That's my rationale. But once
again, part of the problem is that I don't know as much about what is
being offered any longer, because I can't walk into the store and pick
up Red Hat and compare it. Even if I could with companies changing their
minds about how long they're going to support products, etc. I'd prefer
to sit with Fedora for a while and play it safe. It works for me.

> RedHat is a good company trying their best to do the right thing and
> walk a tight rope.  They need to charge enough to continue their service
> and to help open source as well as to make some return for their
> shareholders...etc.  

Well, this is part of the problem. I agree that they're trying to do
their best. I agree that they give back to the community. That's why
I've been more than happy to support OSS, having bought a couple
versions of Red Hat 6.x, Red Hat 7.0 - 7.3, Mandrake 8.0 - 8.2 and SuSE
8.0 - SuSE 8.2. I've supported OSS. I've bought Star Office once. I own
a license to use Quanta Gold. I put my money down in support of the
products. But I won't do it while these companies are trying to sort out
what I get for my money. By the way, for the record, as someone who
jumped from sinking dotcom ship to sinking dotcom ship, you're not going
to see me shedding any tears for "shareholders".

> RedHat has gone above and beyond this call of duty by offering a free as
> in freedom and beer OS to us and restraining all of their distributions
> to only include free software (as in freedom) in their base.

I agree. That's why I went with Fedora. I like Fedora and I like what it
stands for. However, I don't really understand the differences between
their lines of software above Fedora, frankly. Let's put it this way. I
like Fedora so much and I support free software so much that I'd gladly
*pay* for Fedora if they'd let me. It's that good and it's of that high
of quality IMHO. But I'm not going to jump into a product that might not
have the same freedom of use that Fedora does, which I don't know if
RHEL Desktop does or doesn't.

> So in summary...just give them a break, they are trying to be as
> responsible and respectable as they can.

Give ME a break. I didn't jump on Red Hat for anything. I simply stated
that Fedora was going to be my choice because I don't understand what
makes something a desktop vs. a server, which is an important question
to someone who does development work on his desktop. I apologize for
invoking Microsoft. I wasn't meaning to say Red Hat is like Microsoft,
but rather that this idea that one product is a server and the other is
a desktop is something I don't understand in Linux land. Maybe you could
explain it to me. 

In Microsoft's case, they make the arbitrary decision to cripple
essentially the same codebase so that you can't run a server on a
desktop. Linux has always been different. Linux has always been this
cool OS you could buy (or not buy) and do whatever you wanted with it.
Whether it be a file server or a web server or a dev box or a desktop
for email, web browsing and MP3s. Same with FreeBSD. So you have to
excuse me if I don't understand the difference between desktop Red Hat
and server Red Hat and bristle at the idea based on past experience with
how other companies decide which is which.

Preston