Is Fedora *really* Free?

[Dave Ihnat]

On Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 12:34:13PM -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> What's the point of funding Fedora if only 50 people use it?

Actually, even if only 50 people used Fedora it'd probably be worth it to
RedHat.  (Not that I think the number would ever go so low.)

First, the platform is useful to RH just from the point of view of
integration and testing--development on Fedora isn't just lost to the
end user.  This is the testbed for the next generation of features that
go into RHE.

Secondly, even if only a relatively small pool of people used Fedora, RH would
still get input from them on problems and opinions.  No matter how small the
pool could get, it's larger than the test groups at RH.

Finally, it's still a PR win for RH.  As long as they provide support for
Fedora, they're still members of the Open Source community and effort,
and not just another SCO-in-the-making.
--
	Dave Ihnat
	President, DMINET Consulting, Inc.
	dihnat at dminet.com