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End of Redhat Consumer Distro...
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/03/1749259.shtml?tid=106&tid=110&tid=126&tid=163&tid=185&tid=187
So, give away the product and charge for support == failure? Hehe, a blatant troll, yes. But what does this mean for the industry? Are people beginning to find that free is not really possible when you need a commercial level of quality? Maybe no surprises there... I'm not going to put any opinions down here yet, i'm curious as to what people's gut reactions are to something like this. Important? Irrelevant? Hmm...
Andrew Cherry
Monday, November 3, 2003
1. Give away Linux
3. Profit
Works for the underwear gnomes...
Philo
Philo
Monday, November 3, 2003
1. Give away Linux
2. Start charging for Linux
3. Profit
Sounds like Microsoft from way back to me :P
Anon.
Monday, November 3, 2003
"Are people beginning to find that free is not really possible when you need a commercial level of quality?"
:) except that its the consumer version that is being discontinued...RHEL is still going from strength to strength.
I dont really see any surprises here, consumers dont really like paying for support at the best of times (its easier to get your brother-in-law, cousin, uncle or whatever to help you out), so Im not entirely surprised that RedHat is having problems getting them to shell out......
A more interesting question IMO would be whether the lack of a consumer product will hurt their enterprise sales....will geeks recommend a distro that they are not actually using themselves?
FullNameRequired
Monday, November 3, 2003
More importantly, how would you learn your way around RH linux if you can't pick it up and install it at home?
Philo
Philo
Monday, November 3, 2003
I think RedHat is underestimating the number of people that recommend the Enterprise version based on their use of the free version.
Also, I think that being a public company is forcing them in this direction. If they were privately held there would be less pressure to do this.
Scot
Monday, November 3, 2003
This is not unprecedented. Being on this forum, I'm reminded of Fogcreek, who dropped support of a low-cost version of Citydesk. But starting out with the low-cost version may have been useful to spread the message, like starting out free got Redhat in the door. The question is, has Redhat built up its brand so it's a good idea to stop maintaining the free version?
anonymous
Monday, November 3, 2003
I'm glad people finally get it.
By releasing free software, programmers hurt other programmers, while gaining almost nothing for themselves.
I'm glad that the OSS insanity is finally showing signs of ending!
John K.
Monday, November 3, 2003
"By releasing free software, programmers hurt other programmers, while gaining almost nothing for themselves.
I'm glad that the OSS insanity is finally showing signs of ending!"
it genuinely worries me that people with such a total lack of insight into real life work as programmers.
Youd think being so devoid of the ability to see things as they are would be a real drawback.
FullNameRequired
Monday, November 3, 2003
I think it's like this:
1. Enterprise level support
2. Support by a public company
3. Free access to the OS
Pick any 2.
Portabella
Monday, November 3, 2003
The free version of Red Hat Linux is now the Fedora Project ... http://fedora.redhat.com/
Matt Wilson
Monday, November 3, 2003
"I think it's like this:
<snip>
Pick any 2."
<g> that whole IBM/OSS (or Sun/OSS) thing has passed you by then?
FullNameRequired
Monday, November 3, 2003
actually I do strongly suspect that the consumer level market for OSS will always be a really, really hard one to chase.
I have an idea that the most successful consumer level OS companies wll be those like the distributor of Lindows who make their money largely from the hardware sales.
its interesting to me that AFAICS the basic market that Lindows covers is actually broadly similar to that of apple (bear with me here...) They make most of their money from selling the hardware, and provide the software broadly as a bonus. Thats not entirely true of Lindows of course..their click n run setup is prolly another source of income, but Id hate to guess how much actual profit they make from it.
FullNameRequired
Monday, November 3, 2003
They're still going to produce a consumer distro, they're just not going to offer formal support for it or put it on store shelves. That's good enough for me.
T. Norman
Monday, November 3, 2003
"Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is a darn powerful pull imho. Does anyone doubt you would be reading this right now without gnu in the hearts of men?
I use Redhat, and MS. I don't mind paying for software. I did not, however, pay for the redhat network. It appeared to be US$60.00 a year and I find that too expensive. I hate their rpm system. I just use Redhat cus the guy at work gave me the disks, I feel a tug for debian who I've heard has a better update system. I might have paid US$20.00 a year for rhn.
But no one needs redhat. There are plenty of other distros out there. Plus, the whole idea is to get software to work together as you need. I can tell you that my Xwindows box is substantially more stable than my windows 98 box and I would not think twice about running my 24x7 website on a windows box.
Me
Monday, November 3, 2003
FNR,
Please elucidate your insights into real life which John K. is incapable of seeing.
Tony Chang
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
certainly :)
""By releasing free software, programmers hurt other programmers, while gaining almost nothing for themselves.
I'm glad that the OSS insanity is finally showing signs of ending!""
(a) many, many programmers these days are basing their work on _using_ free software. Also, many (most?) of the programmers spending more than a few hobby hours a week on oss are being paid to do so.
It can definitely be argued that oss is harming some programmers, but it is also abundantly clear that it is extremely beneficial for others.
(b) The oss 'insanity' is showing no signs of ending, rather the opposite in fact.
I am not (in this thread at least) taking a position as to whether oss is either good or bad, but the above two points are abundantly clear to anyone with any grasp of reality whatsoever.
FullNameRequired
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
What used to be called "Red Hat Linux" is now becoming "Fedora Linux" (or perhaps the name will change until it comes out, I don't know). RedHat is still involved with money, people etc.
RedHat's server product, "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" is still going strong, and will work together with the Fedora project.
And, John K: the "insanity" is just intensifying. Red Hat has delegated work on "Red Hat Linux" to a community project, which -- while they help finance -- is going to cost them a lot less, and deliver about as much. If you consider the economics and do your math, you'll find that it's sound economical reasoning on (almost) everyone's behalf.
Ori Berger
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
"I have an idea that the most successful consumer level OS companies wll be those like the distributor of Lindows who make their money largely from the hardware sales."
Or Tivo.
Jim Rankin
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
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