Which distro for the enterprise now?

Thomas Cameron said:
>> He is a "customer", it is well within in his right and certainly part
>> of his fiduciary duty to research alternatives. I will harp again why
>> selling on "source code" and "price" is a lousy methodology. It is
>> clear that price is a factor for this individual. You can like it or
>> not. He feels (and is correct) that he can get similar (or possibly
>> better) product at similar or reduced price point. Why should he NOT
>> be considering that?
>
> I guess in my experience, the dollar value is low enough that the cost
> is really negligible.

My point was to him the cost was enough to consider it. You asked "why on
earth", I was trying to answer that. :)

>> Wait a minute. Have they been giving a product away? Yes, but
>> remember 90% or more of that product was GIVEN to them. Did they pour
>> money into marketing the their product (which largerly was the work of
>> others)? Yes.
>> In fact, hell yes.
>
> Did they pour money into management and packaging tools to make the
> distro easier to use? Absolutely.

Yes I never argued that. Resources are not finitely contained as dollar
figures. Many contributors poured countless hours into Linux before Red
Hat touched it and continue to contribute. I am not trying to lessen what
Red Hat has done. I just want to make it clear, Red Hat added a small
portion of the software to an existing bundle and market it under their
name. Which is great. However, they seem to want to license software
under the guise of a support contract. When the two should be considered
one.


>> Have they done a lot for the F/OSS community? Certainly. For
>> sometime they were still assigning a lot of code changes to the Free
>> Software Foundation. I am not sure I agree they have done more for
>> F/OSS than anyone else, though they have made a huge contribution.
>
> So we can at least agree that they are not bad guys?

Absolutely. I don't think the original poster was making them out to be
bad guys either. As far as commercially oriented distributions go, they
are probably the most Free Software friendly.

> I don't know if I agree with you that they are trying to become more
> proprietary and charge for licenses as some nefarious plan to lock
> customers in. They are trying to make money for doing a whole lot of
> really hard work.

As stated. I am not against them making money. Only time will tell about
the lockin and proprietary changes. They have made moves that way, it is
a matter of where they will draw the line. To date, where they draw the
line is close to my limit, but they are still what I would consider Free
Software friendly.

>> > So why not pay for all the work that RH has done with RHEL? Even if
>> you don't negotiate a better price, using RHEL is still a fraction
>> the cost of Windows.
>>
>> Well Windows is a fraction of the cost of Unix. Why not use Windows?
>> The logic is flawed. If he can find something better or as good for a
>> fraction of Red Hat, why should he use Red Hat?
>
> Um, because I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest that
> because Windows is cheaper that it is better. What I got from the
> thread was that he wanted *nix performance but was concerned about the
> price. Don't think that I am silly enough to believe that cheaper ==
> better. If that were true, then Big Macs would be considered gourmet.
> Haven't seen anyone with that belief.

So you agree that just because RHEL is a fraction of the cost of Windows
that doesn't make RHEL the best choice or even a better choice than
Windows by default? As I got the impression you were saying that because
RHEL was a fraction of the cost of Windows it made it better than
anything else he could find. Perhaps I misunderstood.

>> >> But my company wants to control costs,
>> >> and I can't really suggest going forward with
>> >> RHEL servers at $800+/yr a pop and rolling out
>> >> RHEL WS desktops at $150+/yr subscriptions.
>> >
>> > Why on Earth not? That's cheap compared to Windows!
>>
>> Because compared to the $0 it costs for Debian, it's criminal.
>
> And your support contract for Debian consists of...? You're not really
> paying for the software. You're paying for professional support. There
> isn't a Debian "company" which can offer it, and if there were I
> guarantee they'd charge for it. They'd have to. Volunteerism is great,
> and I hold the Debian project in the absolute highest regard, but it
> doesn't lend itself to Enterprise computing with SLAs.
>
That is my *point*! With Debian I have freedom. I get the software and I
get to CHOOSE my support vendor. With RHEL I have to pay for the support
in order to get the software. At which point if I changed support vendors
I would be DOUBLE paying for support. I hope you can understand the
difference.

I am not saying paid support is bad. I am saying tying the support fee to
the license is a limit in choice in a strong way. It is a way that Red
Hat can lock people into buying their support as it becomes non cost
prohibitive to do otherwise.

I never once said to rely on community support for Debian. In fact, I
frankly said that support was to be had for a price.

>> >> What
>> >> are other admins doing?
>> >
>> > Using RHEL, SUSE, or taking their chances with other distros which
>> have no commercial support.
>>
>> I use Debian. In the case of Debian we found more than one company
>> willing to support it. Which was great, because we know if we are not
>> happy with their support we can move on to someone that will value us.
>
> OMG, so you are paying for Debian support! Some cad is actually
> CHARGING to support the distro! That FIEND! How can you bring yourself
> to spend money on support! Seriously, you've just proven my point...
> You are always going to need support for your OS, whether NetWare,
> Windows, *nix or MacOS. Everyone knows this. But Red Hat is catching
> Hell because they've formalized it. I just don't get it.

Yes I am willing to pay for support. That was never the issue. The
difference is unlike any operating system I have owned to date, I actually
had a fist full of vendors to choose from who I could get support. I got
the software as one transaction then was able to shop for support as a
second transaction. This is a very important advance in the software
world.

>> > I am not a zealot. I am a fan of fair play. RH has supported, one
>> could even say carried the Linux community in North America for
>> years.
>>
>> You could say that, but that is a bit of stretch.
>
> It may be a stretch. I just know how many Usenet posts I read that say
> "I am running Linux 9.0..." There is a huge swath of the populace who,
> rightly or wrongly, see Red Hat as "Linux."

Many of our users think they are running the "newest version of windows".
When in fact they are on Debian Based LTSP. I wouldn't go as far as
saying therefore Debian has carried the Microsoft Windows community
because of that. :)

>> > Why is it so terrible that they want to make money at it? I use and
>>
>> If they make money at the expense of the users freedom, it may not be
>> terrible. However, the user doesn't have to like it.
>
> *I* don't think that they are infringing on any freedoms, but I can sort
> of see where people who just hate software licenses could think that
> they are. Is that what you mean? I'm not being a smart-ass, I really
> don't understand what you mean.

What I mean is that the license for the software should not include the
support contract. They should be two separate and distinct things.

>> Last time I checked their tax dollars should be paying for their kids
>> school, but public vs private education is a different debate for a
>> different list.
>
> College ain't free no matter how much tax you pay (unless you have a
> very gifted kid who gets a full ride).

My apologies. Age difference thing. Mine are 10 or more years off from
college, so when I hear school I think of grade school. When I hear
torture and pain I think of college. :)

>> So we should tolerate Enron, MCI and other corporations
>> because their employees have mouths to feed? Before you blow up.. I
>> am not saying Red Hat == Enron. If one works for a company without
>> scruples or without a solid business model, they really should be
>> looking for employment elsewhere. (imho)
>
> Huh?!?! I think RH has a solid biz model and I certainly don't think
> that charging for their work qualifies them as not having scruples.

No. I did not mean to imply they did not have scruples. I do think in
some regards their business plan is soft.

>> > RH makes a good distro. They are a good company, and a great member
>> of our community. Why is it so tough to return that support?
>>
>> Okay after all that. I do like Red Hat the company. Though they do
>> scare me a bit because of thier shareholders. They have a good track
>> record with the community and there is some value in that. Certainly
>> they bring value to the table.
>
> I don't think that shareholders make a company scary. IBM has
> shareholders, yet they are pumping literally billions into F/OSS.
> Shareholders generally keep a company on the straight and narrow. Just
> because there have been a lot of high-visibility companies who have
> blown up doesn't mean that most or even many companies are crooked.
> Being publicly traded != a bad thing.

Shareholders are scary when you have principles at stake. Let's face it
they invested money. They are interested in a return on that money.
Remember the ideals of Free Software are pretty strong, yet to the average
investor they are not willing to hold on to them if that means sufferring
a long term economic loss. Publicly traded companies are not necessarily
bad or evil, but ones whose premise is on a model of political and social
absolutes it gets scary. :)

>> However, I think anyone looking at making a move like this should do
>> the research for themselves. I personally think Debian is a better
>> bet, but it is highly conditional on a number of factors. It would be
>> wrong to make any major business decision with out all the facts from
>> all the players.
>
> I like Debian, and I highly respect and admire the project members. But
> if I'm in an "oh crap!" situation, I want something other than a mailing
> list for support.

Luckily for Debian users there are number of companies willing to offer
support. :)

-Derek