Advanced Server free?

[Benjamin J. Weiss]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:

> At 13:38 6/10/2004, Eric Wood wrote:
> >Yeah, I know WBEL <> RHEL but the symantics are confusing.  That's why I
> >frequently hear the "you'll be out of compliance" rather than a more strong
> >statement - "illegal".  I still think this refers mainly to support and
> >binary format of updates.
> 
> It is! Red Hat is trying to leave people an open door to continue using 
> their products for free if they are willing to spend time and effort on it, 
> which WBEL is. Red Hat is furthermore trying to sell support and updates by 
> subscription, which is what the contract is all about. Clearly RH also 
> hopes that some people will choose to pay them instead of using a free 
> "clone" simply to support their efforts. Let's hope they succeed in a big way!

And then there are people like myself, who are investigating WBEL because 
we want something like RHEL ES at home but can't afford it now that RH has 
discontinued RHL and RHN.

I think RH is being smart in this regard.  By allowing projects like WBEL 
to exist, it helps keep folks like me from migrating from RH to SuSE, 
especially now that Novell has acquired them.

This way, I'll be able to keep up my RH experience at home, with a 
relatively stable distro, and purchase RHEL ES for work.  win-win. :)

Ben