I used RH9 on all my commercial servers previously to Centos, and I
bought paid copies for each even though I could have just downloaded it
because I wanted to support the cause. However Red Hat then dumped me
high and dry with no further release after RH9 leaving me a huge bill to
upgrade to RHEL for each machine, for support that I had never used in
the past anyway....so Centos was a perfect choice....
So I don't see myself as leach moreover I see my self as an astute
business man not paying for something I don't need. I have contributed
to the community and will help with any question posed that I feel I can
answer adequately. This is far more valuable than paying some
commercial organisation driven by share holders selling me something I
don't want or need...
Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
> Collins Richey wrote:
>
>> I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial
>> endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support,
>> etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users
>> are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
>
>
> The major work is done mostly by community. Red Hat, or any other
> distribution, is built from free software that is developed and
> maintainted by many volunteers who are not affiliated (or paid by) Red
> Hat in any way. Yes, there are people paid by Red Hat who also
> contribute, but still, vast majority of work is done by community.
>
> What Red Hat sells is support. And really, there is nothing else they
> can sell you. So, I don't consider people using RHEL clones to be
> leaches. They are simply not buying part of the system that they
> don't need. Even with commercial software (Windoze, Oracle, etc),
> support is something you pay extra annually on top of what you pay for
> the software itself. If you want it, you pay for it. If you don't
> want it, you don't pay for it.
>
> And you know, consulting, support, training, and certifications is a
> big and profitable business on its own. Even Microsoft is probably
> making way more money on it, than on selling Windblows OS. You can
> make a very good money out of it, and if Red Hat as company is managed
> as it should be, than Red Hat doesn't need to worry about its
> financial future. Frankly, I don't really understand their business
> decision not to release RHEL distribution for free. Those who need
> support would buy support anyhow. Those who don't need support can
> choose some other just as good distribution anyhow. Somebody who
> started using some other distribution isn't going to buy support from
> Red Hat. Somebody who uses RHEL (clone), might decide to spend some
> extra $$$ for support/training/whatever.
>
> I don't consider Red Hat's bugzilla system to be part of "paid
> support". If I find a bug when using CentOS, that the bug exists in
> RHEL, and if I report it, fixing it will lead to better product for
> Red Hat's paying customers too. Happy customers = more referrals =
> more profit. Each time I stumble on non-trivial security related or
> data corruption bugs (as the bug in NFS system I recently reported)
> when using CentOS, I report it to Red Hat. Usually I'll mention in
> bug report that I stumbled on it when using CentOS (if I don't forget,
> happens sometimes). It is than on the Red Hat to decide if they are
> going to do something about it, or wait till one of paying customers
> is bitten by it.
>
> I haven't heard anybody being called a leach for downloading and
> installing Solaris 10 (which is free for commercial use too, for those
> of you who don't know it, and it is planned to go open source sometime
> this year) on his/hers Intel box, and not paying for Sun support (or
> buying Sun hardware). If Sun who actually did all development work
> themselves (and put way more money into making it) is not calling
> people "leaches", I would be very dissapointed to hear it from Red
> Hat who "only" (OK, it isn't as simple as "only", making a
> distribution is a big job on its own, but you get the point) packaged
> something that other people spent countless man-hours to make.
>
