Whitebox Linux

[Benjamin J. Weiss]

From: "Dave Jones" <davej at redhat.com>
> On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 14:24, Phil Schaffner wrote:
>
> > >   Let's be cristal clear there, you might get support for Whitebox
Linux
> > > but it won't come from Red Hat.
> > >
> > > Daniel
> >
> > But as long as there are SRPMS there can be community support.
>
> The point being made is that if you find a bug in Whitebox Linux, and
> that bug doesn't get fixed in a RHEL update, and the Whitebox
> maintainers can't fix it, Red Hat has no obligation to fix that bug.
>
> With the support you buy with RHEL you stand an extremely high chance
> that your bug gets fixed in a future update.
>
> "community support" is all well and good, but taking the Fedora kernel
> as an example.. asides from AMD64 input from Justin, and a half dozen
> random fixes from folks to various bugs, 99% of the fixes going in there
> are done by myself and other Red Hat employees. Hopefully over time, as
> Fedora matures, this ratio will change (Especially when things like
> external CVS appears).
>
> Given this is the level of external support that the Red Hat support
> community distro has had so far, what makes you think that the (not
> fixed in RHEL) bugs in Whitebox Linux would be fixed by the community
> any quicker ?
>
> Additionally, the second that you start putting community fixes into
> Whitebox Linux, you've *really* started a proper fork, making future
> updates painful to integrate.

Dave,

I think we all understand that, but RH has left many of us in a serious bind
and we're trying desperately to find a fix.

You see, RHL was perfect for me, and apparently for enough others that RHL
became a threat to RH's bottom line.  I understand that, and appreciate that
RH had to do *something* if it was to survive as a company.  Unfortunately,
while I have been very happy to support RH at work by purchasing RHEL, I
have not that option at home.  I simply don't have the cash to purchase RHEL
for home use, even considering that it costs just as much as Winbloze.

Fedora is very cool, and I'm testing it and writing HOWTO's for it now, but
I don't know if I can keep up with the upgrade schedule.  Which leaves me
and a whole bunch of others between the rock and the hard place.

Something like whitebox looks like it might be a way out.  I sure intend to
look into it when I get a bit more time.  Not because I mind so much being a
guniea pig for RHEL by using FC, but because I can't afford the time
investment of having to wipe my server and do a clean install every six
months.  (I know that William Hooper and others have said that you don't
have to do a clean install, but I've had bad experiences with upgrades, as
have many others on the list.)

One sad side effect on all of this is mind share.  I used to be able to tell
my boss that I use and administer RH at home, so he was happy to have RH
here at work.  Now that I am having to tell him that I'm using Fedora Core
(which I'm currently testing) or whitebox (which I'll test after I finish
the mail server howto with Rodolfo), he's less interested in RH.  His theme
seems to be more "well, if you're not using RH at home anymore, we may as
well evaluate RH vs Suse and see which one we use".  Of course, the guy in
charge of our Automated Fingerprint Identification System is an old-hand
Suse guy, and you can imagine how that's affecting things.

Anyway, sorry for the long email.  I'm just very sad that RH's bottom line
is losing them so many of the supporters that made them what they are today.
I guess it's the way of the world.  Or something.

Ben