My biggest issue here is that one of the selling points for RHL was that you get all the OS FREE
I understand your opinion. I'm happy to get things for free too. However, experience has proven to Red Hat, Inc. that they lose money doing this, and that not enough people subscribe to Red Hat Network. Too many people take the OS for free, download the updates for free, and give $0.00 back to RH, Inc. for the work they put into their product.
Now you face a somewhat different market, that the RHEL line will be around longer, be more stable, and be _very_ aggressively supported... but costs money. As in "real money". Now you have to make a fair comparison between RHEL and its competitors (mostly Windows). And I believe you'll find (but go see for yourself) that there is enough of a hidden cost in Windows...
* Windows license * Anti-virus software license * Instability * Insecurity * More admin work * etc.
...to make the RHEL line an excellent "value" for the customer. Even though their cost goes up, it is still going to be less than it was for Windows servers, properly and fully licensed. Again, this is what _my_ numbers are showing... go make your own, don't take my word for it, or anyone's word for it.
On the other hand, you now get Fedora, which does not have commercial support from Red Hat, but for which others could potentially provide such support (even though I doubt this will happen). Fedora will evolve more quickly, include more stuff, be released more frequently, and still COST NOTHING. Nothing for the OS, nothing for the updates, NOTHING.
Personally, I hope that one of these solutions is good for you and for a lot of people, since I believe that (for too many reasons) Microsoft needs to be taken down a notch or ten. So I hope that Red Hat's strategy proves successful and interesting in terms of both taking market share away from Windows (RHEL and Fedora) and making a solid buck in the process (RHEL).
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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