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

[Jay Daniels]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 06:18:38PM -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> At 14:02 4/12/2004, you wrote:
> 
> >The point was that for those who paid for RH9 service that moving to RHWS 
> >isn't truly an upgrade if you're using any of the missing features.
> 
> The original poster (Guy Fraser) said he got "ripped off" because RH 
> discontinued 9. I said that he would have an OS available for the life of 
> his subscription, and that (despite having notified of the EOL previously) 
> RH had attempted to compensate him for said EOL by providing access (for no 
> additional cost) to an OS which *they* perceive to be better than what he 
> had before since it has an EOL approximately in 2008.
> 
> Whether you or I see it as an upgrade is *not* the point. Guy said he got 
> ripped off, I say he didn't... he got something of value throughout the 
> life of his subscription.

Let's see, he paid for something that is essentially free.  Got ripped
off? that's a matter of opinion.

When I purchased Redhat 7.3 they sent me an email 2 weeks after I
registered saying my 30 day email support had expired. Apparently RH
can't count.  Maybe it was because the date on my computer was fuxored
after installing redhat, see date/time bug errata...  heehee, they
couldn't even get the time zone stuff right before pressing the
cdroms.

My opinion is that all the redhat releases should have been test
releases and were not all that stable either.  For instance, when
installing redhat on different computers and different monitors the
installer screen was offset on all of them.  That seems pretty simple
to me to create an installer that would be centered on the screen, but
apparently with Redhat it wasn't...  installing windows on the same
boxes, the windows installer automatically centered the screen.  I
expect more from a "commercial" Linux distribution.

Goes to show that million or should I say billions of dollars does not
create the perfect Linux distro.

Look what Apple has done with the Mac OSX.  Linux distros are years
ahead of OSX, but they don't even compare - except for the price.

All in all, I think redhat has contributed a lot to Linux and the
opensource community.  On the otherhand, they have made millions off
something that is free.  30 day emails support, a crock of shit.  The
cheap linux cds online are just as good, and the manual sold with
Redhat distros are pretty lame.

Considering what you get, I would call it a ripoff compared to the
excellent Linux magazines like the Linux Journal and other Linux books
which come with a free distro on cdrom and now on DVD.

However, comparing RedHat to MS Windows, you decide;)

RedHat took advantage of newbies by offering a very appealing
boxed set with manual in retail stores even after they knew 9.0 was
history!  It should have never been sold in retail outlets.  I guess
they know that now.  But they screwed up trying to grab the desktop
market with of all things bad cdroms that were defective, installer
that crashed and was not centered on the screen, etc...

I bet newbies (not knowing anything about Linux) after hearing how
great Linux was then went out and purchased RedHat Linux said, what a
Piece-O-S***!

Requardless of your facts, dates and links, I understand this user's
frustrations.  Live and learn.  RedHat will probably die sometime
during our lifetime.  In any case, I don't think investing in RedHat
today is a good idea.

The prices redhat charges goes way beyond the price of packaging!
Slackware Linux is just as good as redhat without the fancy GUI
installer.  The only real advantage of RH is that since it's so
popular there are lot of hardware support for it coming out of intel
and other manufacturers like adaptec.  More hardware support means
more users and this is the main reason redhat is still alive.

I hope one day a Linux distro is actually that, Linux!  All packages
are the same and hardware support is universal.  I know Linux is not
X, KDE, or Gnome, but Linux has already become a desktop OS whether
you like it or not.

It is apparent that Redhat has pissed off a lot of would-be Linux
users.

jmho,


jay