Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> RHEL is about Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and 5+ year updates, and
> not about milking you dry. For a $300+ product, you get free support
> and the option to get guaranteed response times. Red Hat originally
> tried to sell a Red Hat Linux 6.2 E[nterprise] with SLAs. But SuSE
> Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 7 came out and showed that the industry
> wanted a "separate enterprise product" and Red Hat followed suit.
When I did try that support, it didn't give me a favourable
impression. However, that's just my opinion. Others wil no doubt
have really benefitted from it. What I really needed was the errata
and updates rather than support, and an overall better overall
lifecycle that RHEL promises and indeed, delivers. I could have gone
down the Fedora route, but wasn't too thrilled with it's overall
lifecycle.
I'm a non-commercial user (but neither a charity or educational
establishment) and that $300 per year is a lot of money to pay for a
stable and constantly updated OS. You could argue I could use Debian
or some other free distribution, but having been a Red Hat Linux user
for many years it's what I know best and feel the most comfortable around.
Now I didn't actually mind PAYING for RHEL, of course not, but I just
find they need to find a sweet spot price for those that may not need
the install/configuration support (like me), or the SLAs, but want the
lifecycle the product delivers and the stability it offers. Is $340
per year worth it for that?
I was paying ?65 a year for the RHN for the last available versions of
the Red Hat Linux and that suited me just fine. That price is now
?184, and includes features I don't actually need or want.
Of course CentOS has now came along, and that's meeting my needs just
fine. Hence why I'm more than happy to make the odd donation when I can.
> But by paying that money, you fund the largest commercial GPL company
> and collection of GPL projects. Don't bash Red Hat, they are a very,
> very good company -- 100% GPL-anal to the ultra-power. The only other
> company that comes close is now SuSE, thanx to Novell's purchase --
> although Novell still a doesn't make their core goods GPL (whereas all
> of Red Hat's developments are always 100% GPL).
I'm not bashing Red Hat. Bashing Red Hat would be something along the
lines of "Red Hat sucks; they've done nothing for the community;
they're just another greedy organisation" which would be wrong on all
accounts. Red Hat is also a business and needs to be profitable like
any other business. I recognise that. I also recognise what they've
done for the community as well. They are a good company.
> And that's a good thing. But don't feel the need to bash Red Hat just
> because you appreciate the CentOS project.
I'm sorry to have come across 'bashing' Red Hat. Not my intention,
most definately.
M.
