On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 21:00:02 -0700, Craig White <craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 20:46 -0700, Collins Richey wrote:
> > On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 22:29:37 -0500, Chris Mauritz <chrism@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > Tony Wicks wrote:
> > >
> > > > http://news.com.com/Programmers+bypass+Red+Hat+Linux+fees/2100-7344_3-5632434.html?tag=st.pop
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > quote -
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Call me crazy, but I feel like I get better support from the CentOS
> > > folks and the community. I didn't switch to CentOS because it was
> > > "cheaper."
> > >
> >
> > It's a little of both for me (home user). I don't pay for Linux,
> > period. A friend put me on to CentOS, and I like what I've seen. Most
> > companies want paid support, as though it really provides anything.
> > They don't understand the community support model at all.
> >
> > I wonder, for example, if anyone has gotten the true story from RedHat
> > support about the LVM/LV2 mess with lack of support for shrinking
> > filesystems - propably not in the clear way it's presented on the
> > CentOS list.
> ----
> they don't censor the nahant (RHEL 4) or the taroon (RHEL 3) lists so
> there's no reason why it can't be discussed on their lists and of
> course, everyone is free to create bugzilla entries.
>
More fuel for the community support model, as opposed to the official
(paid) support channels. I'm an old renegade from the Gentoo and
Linux-user lists and as such accustomed to rapid world-wide support
from a team of volunteers rather than from a paid subsciption service.
My limited experience in the past has been that paid subsciption
service takes twice as long to get the answers as does the community
model. RedHat (or any other service) can only pay a certain number of
engineers to respond to questions whereas there are (theoretically)
unlimited numbers of volunteers who have detailed experience with
almost any aspect of Linux/OSS and who are more than willing to answer
questions.
I haven't visited the actual RedHat user lists (except for Fedora a
while back), but I'm sure the same principles apply, i.e. more rapid
reponse than paid support channels. The only problem with user lists
is increasing popularity. CentOS is manageable and effective (yet),
but the last time I visited the Fedora list, it was a firehose, and I
had to unsubscribe. Fortunately there are archives.
--
Collins
When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them,
it was the start of a new Arab world.... The Berlin Wall has fallen.
- Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt
