On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 20:55, Steve Smith wrote:
> Craig White wrote:
> 
> ... major snippage
> > 
> > What this means is that people want to dance to the music without paying
> > the fiddler as if the assemblage of this distro, the timely updates over
> > a cycle of 5 years will be without cost and the people paying for this
> > privilege are the actual purchasers of RHEL. I know I would feel like
> > Freddy the Freeloader if I were to download and install it for someone.
> 
> Given the circumstances, it was rather decent of Redhat to make the 
> SRPMs available for free download. I know if *I* took the combined work 
> of thousands of volunteers, slapped a draconian EULA on it and charged 
> hundreds or thousands of dollars per license, I'd feel like Randy the 
> Robber Baron ;-)
> 
----
I absolutely agree with this except for one thing - the RHEL isn't the
only package that you can get from Red Hat. Their RHL has been fully
available for free download and use and Fedora is probably more
accessible and extensible than any previous version of RHL and still
free.

Is Fedora fully functional yet? No - Mostly but not completely

Would I use it on a new server for one of my clients yet? No

Would I suggest that my clients use RHEL? Yes

Would I insist that my clients use RHEL? No

Here's the problem in a nutshell. I install RH 7.3 on a client's new
server. There are a bunch of security alerts on an exposes daemon - such
as apache. I have to update it. I need someone to provide me the rpm
updates or roll my own (or compile it from source). 

Silly me wants to get paid for my time so I have to charge the client to
update this 'free' software (I like this idea by the way). I tell my
client that he can subscribe to an 'update service' which will provide
him with easy updates that minimize my time (hence his costs). That
works but now the version reaches EOL and I must update completely. More
time, re-configuration of new settings, etc.

So Red Hat comes out with product with a commitment to maintain it for 5
years...does that have value? You bet your sweet bippy. Does that make
Red Hat akin to Randy the Robber Baron? I guess we each have to decide
that question for ourselves and sometimes for our clients.

On a different message base, I made the comment that there really isn't
any such thing as free software, because there is always the time. My
time, your time, the packager's time and then finally, the ability of
the packagers to sustain themselves so that they continue to package.

The beauty of the entire system is that there is choice and you need to
look no further than Debian to find a package system of Linux that you
never need to pay for. RHEL with it's Draconian Eula (your term), I
would submit that no one needs to submit to it...there's no gun to
anyone's head and man there are hundreds of other choices. It's simply
one choice.

BTW - My understanding is that RHAS 3.0 is a free upgrade to entitled
RHAS 2.1 customers...it's freely available for download (which I just
did) and I will be installing it on 2 new Dell PowerEdge rack servers
that one of my clients bought just days before it was released (servers
came with RHAS 2.1). 

I gather that you are feeling screwed by Red Hat. I am very much in the
undecided - it all depends upon whether the Fedora product gets legs,
innovative extensions and gets longevity.

The funny thing about all this is that I see several different camps of
Linux use...desktop users, server users and people that haven't figured
out what they want it to do. 

Desktop users want to ride the latest crest of Gnome/KDE/OpenOffice/etc.
releases and they don't care how often they have to upgrade. The
twice-per-year update on cheap shrink-wrapped boxes are tough to get
shelf space and low margin.

Server users want to stay the course, get easy/quick security updates
and let the rest pass them by (save for perhaps Samba 3.0). 

Of course, you can always opt not to feel like Freddy or Randy, but more
like Bob Hope and tell Red Hat "Thanks for the Memories" (I know that
you have been a Red Hat user).

Craig