[NTLUG:Discuss] Redhat Offerings -- the Red Hat bashing tour is back!

[Cameron, Thomas]

Answers inline, below:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org]On
> Behalf Of Kevin Hulse
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 9:59 PM
> To: NTLUG Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Redhat Offerings -- the Red Hat bashing
> tourisback!

> Historical revisionist nonsense.
> 
> Redhat has primarily been a desktop distribution with
> all of the other commercial distributors doing more to
> push Linux into "enterprise" space. 

IIRC Red Hat offered clustering with Red Hat 6.  Yeah, I cluster a lot of my desktop computers.

> This includes
> Caldera, TurboLinux and Suse.

None of which has even a fraction of the market share Red Hat has.  Why do you think that the Red Hat newsgroups and mailing lists are so much busier than the others?  Because they have made inroads that none of the others have, and have spread the Linux message further than the others have (at least in North America).

> > what, six or seven
> > years?  That is time and money they spent getting us
> > to that "critical
> > mass."  Now they want to make some of that money
> > back, and you're bitching
> 
> What utter blather.

I hope I never work for a company you manage.  If you don't think earning income is important you should take a reality check.

> There is nothing in retaining the original product
> line that would have prevented Redhat from 
> "productizing" all of "that money".

No, but it would have been a bad business decision.  They need to be profitable just like every other company out there.  Focusing on the RHEL product is the way to do it.  So many in the Linux scream about penetrating the enterprise, then when RH moves to do that they are, as an earlier poster rightly said, demonized.  What rubbish.

> > about it?  And at $109, it is about 20% the price of
> > a Microsoft desktop and
> > productivity tool set.
> 
> Yes, and a minimum of 90% of it was donated from 
> other parties. That's a critical fact to remember
> when keeping this in perspective.

And as anyone who makes a living off of supporting F/OSS will tell you, you aren't paying for the software.  You're paying for the packaging, the compatibility testing and the support.  Red Hat spends an amazing amount of money (and contributes amazing amounts of code and packaging back to the community) doing that testing and packaging.  They have to keep the lights on and the employees happy just like every other company out there.

> The value of their own trademark is built on the
> work of others.

Horse feathers.  The value of their trademark is built on their distribution (packaging and integration) of that that software - not on the software itself.  Red Hat is really a services company who does software, not the other way around.

> Although, my gripe has little to do with that. It
> is more along the lines of the failed notions that
> you could get users to pay for Linux + a commercial
> X server or GL implementation. Linux needs an ultra
> cheap pricepoint. Redhat as the Linux figurehead for
> the unwashed masses consequently needs to have a an
> ultra cheap entry pricepoint.

"The unwashed masses" are not Red Hat's target market.  They tried that with Red Hat Linux and didn't make very much money.  I mean, come one - why pay for a product when you can download it for free?  Red Hat is trying to be more successful in the enterprise, and as an enterprise user I can say that they are doing a heck of a job.

We still pay a *fraction* of the price in TCO that we would pay for any other commercial OS, Windows or Solaris or AIX.  So Red Hat *does* have an "ultra cheap entry pricepoint."

> Otherwise, it makes the rest of Linux look bad. 

I am not even going to venture a guess at how you made that leap.  How on Earth does a Linux company becoming a legitimate enterprise vendor make the rest of Linux look bad?

> This
> is simply one of the negative side effects of an
> "uber" distribution. 

This is a fair market economy.  The best of breed (arguably Red Hat) becomes successful.  The others are not as successful but are still around to keep the top dog competitive.  How is that a bad thing?

> It's not as if no one predicted
> this. 

Yeah, but the same type of people also predicted that we would all need to run into the woods with water and provisions on January 1st, 2000.

> > I say again:  PUH-LEEEEZE!  Get over it.  They are
> > still developing a free
> > (as in beer) distro - it's called Fedora.
> 
> Fedora != Redhat.

Sort of - Fedora is sponsored and funded by Red Hat.  Red Hat developers work on the Fedora project.  But Red Hat strongly encourages community participation - something which the Debian project has been doing (and greatly praised for) for years.  Why is it that the Debian project is hailed as a hero for doing this but Red Hat is suddenly a bad guy?

> This isn't about "free beer", it's about sound
> business planning and building and maintaining 
> the brand with the PHBs.

I should have continued that sentence as "free as in beer AND speech."  The Fedora project is both.

Having said that, the standard Linux mantra "use Linux - it's free" is still the case...  Fedora should appeal to both the "free beer" and "free speech" camps.  I have owned two fairly successful IT consulting businesses.  Nothing Earth-shaking at all, but I managed to keep the lights on and even pocket a little profit with both.  I have had customers for whom Fedora is absolutely a perfect fit - small/medium businesses who just need simple file/print, web, and e-mail type services.  Here at Bank of America I have customers for whom RHEL is a perfect fit - Oracle, clustering, and the need for 24x7x365 support.  Red Hat is *still* making sure that both markets are being served.  Why are they the bad guys?

> Good or bad, Redhat's market position means that
> it's in a position to improve or degrade the
> reputation of Linux in general.

And it is - getting Linux into the enterprise as a serious contender against proprietary Unix versions and against Windows is a huge win for Linux.

> Then again, if Redhat knocked itself down a few
> notches that would not be such a bad thing.

Hrm - if I read this chart correctly (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=RHAT&t=2y) they are doing anything but "knocking themselves down."  Instead it appears to me that they are becoming a serious player in the enterprise, still taking care of the community, and making money for their investors and employees.  Sounds like a Linux success story to me.

And again, it's "Red Hat," two words - not Redhat.

Regards,
--
Thomas Cameron, RHCE, CNE, MCSE, MCT
Assistant Vice President
Linux Design and Engineering
Bank of America
(972) 997-9641

The opinions expressed in this message are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, Bank of America.