RH rips again Was: extend EOL for Red Hat Linux 9?

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 14:27 4/13/2004, you wrote:
>If I remember correctly, and I may be mistaken, RHN for RHL does NOT 
>include access to RHEL errata. RHN for RHEL, again if I remember correctly 
>is more expensive than it was for RHL.

What you have now is access to the RHEL ISO images, so that you can 
download RHEL ES and WS 3.0, and access to the updates for them until the 
end of your subscription.

>I understand that since you work for RH you are baised

There are two responses to this: first, I do not work for Red Hat nor am I 
affiliated with them in *any* way. I have, however, been a customer of 
theirs since the Dark Ages and have been happy with their products and 
their service. I have also in the past operated a Red Hat FTP mirror (at my 
own expense), so I do have some knowledge of how they operate internally in 
terms of distribution.

Second, it strikes me as very sad that you believe it is impossible to work 
for a company and still be able to view them and their products 
impartially. If I did work for RH, that would automatically make me biased? 
What kind of spineless, follow-the-leader, soulless, unethical sheep do you 
work with on a daily basis? Sheesh.

>I was billed for a year of updates for a product that would not be 
>available for the full year.

See, this is the crux of the matter: you believe you bought "updates for a 
product" which is not true. You bought access to the up2date service, which 
would in fact provide you with updates to your RHL-9 installation. It would 
also provide you with access to ISO's and updates to every other past Linux 
distribution. It would furthermore provide those updates to you 
preferentially, giving you priority access and more bandwidth at times of 
peak demand. Finally, it would provide the ability to manage updates to one 
or more boxes remotely and schedule those updates for off-peak times.

You paid $5/month for all of those additional services, *not* just for 
updates to RHL-9. And, as William said in another post, when your chosen 
product went EOL Red Hat attempted to compensate you for any perceived loss 
by offering you something they perceive as being of equal or greater value. 
You may or may not like that (and you have every right), but you also can't 
really say that you got "nothing".

They quit making one type of chocolate, so they gave you another. Product 
substitution when one is no longer able/willing to offer the original 
product is a very common thing in business, and not at all unethical. Of 
course, not every customer will be happy with the substitution, and some 
customers may choose to leave for another supplier, but that's a normal 
risk... it's still not unethical conduct.

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com