RH Decisions (was Re: APT, Yum and Red Carpet)

[Kyle Maxwell]

On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 19:21, Jef Spaleta wrote:
> If OEM's can't market the fact that they pre-install RHL and call it
> RHL..whats the point..for me as an end-user. I'm going to have to buy a
> bare-bones box and make sure the components work together when i install
> rhlp myself....no thanks. I WANT to pay for an OEM i trust to give me
> hardware they are reasonable sure works(with some hardware support
> garuntee) for my home desktop that runs RHL...not pink tie linux...not
> green shoe linux...not monkey chunks linux...I want to KNOW its its
> rhl...and I want that OEM to be able to tell me without hassle that what
> they have pre-installed as the operating system is RHLP. I'd be even
> happier if I had a good way to tell if the OEM was a member of the RHLP
> community in good standing, and not just a leech.

<sniff> I feel like I'm watching Patton... brutha, you have hit the nail
on the head. I hear an anthem and I'm waving the flag while reading your
post.

I've been a RH user and fan for years now, since the 5 series anyway.
I've burned RHL ISOs for friends and family members because I believe
it's one of the best distributions for someone who wants things to Just
Work. I bought retail boxes of the distribution because I like the way
RH has stood with and behind Free Software. At work, I've pushed for
(and gotten!) RHL production installs in places where Windows and
Solaris were being considered or even used previously. That's why I run
Severn here at home: not to get bleeding-edge software on my desktop,
but to do my little part to help out with making it even better. 

But some decisions are starting to leave me in the cold. I think that
the trademark restrictions are more onerous than they need to be,
although I'm glad that they're trying to make sure that their brand
stands for something. I think that the decision to completely pull the
RHL website and leave everyone completely in the cold while they decide
what additional information to add is a bad idea too, though I'm glad
that they want to become a free, public distribution a la Debian. I
think that we need to hear more from RHL, and not just for developers
(this is holding up some major decisions at work), but I'm glad that key
RH developers *are* on the list and participate in the technical
discussions.

RHL is really at a cusp right now, and giving us the cold shoulder --
worse, *pulling* the information that we had for reasons that still
haven't truly been explained -- isn't going to take it in the right
direction. If you're going to be more open, then let's do it! I'm on
board! If not, then I need to start pushing my application vendors
towards other distributions and look into doing the same at home. It's a
small part, but it looks clear that a lot of RH True Believers are being
forced to become Doubting Thomases: we *want* to believe, but so far
we're not given anything in which *to* believe, and it doesn't look good
so far. If RH thinks I'm off-base, great! I want to be wrong -- but show
me the plans so that I will be wrong. But if I'm right, then it'll be
time for me to close this chapter and move on.

-- 
Kyle Maxwell <kylem at xwell.org>