[NTLUG:Discuss] Redhat Offerings -- The _real_ Red Hat "issues"

[Bryan J. Smith]

Okay, I'm new and the _last_thing_ I wanted was to cause a
major flamewar (which I'm know for doing).

In a nutshell, to address the specifics ...
[ this is _all_unofficial_, I do _not_ speak for Red Hat ]

1)  'If Fedora is "so much Red Hat" as its defendants claim,
why did Red Hat choose to change the name?'

Support and trademark issues.  Support-wise, Red Hat was getting
innudated with support calls and expectations of support -- from
end-users to IT publications.  Trademark-wise, Red Hat had the _real_
_issue_ of losing ownership of their trademark because of the sheer
volume of 3rd party CDs and redistribution under the USPTO rules.

So when they finally "put their foot down," all hell broke lose.
Even the FSF tried to stick up for Red Hat at one point to no avail.
(does that tell you something?)

So that's where Fedora comes in.  It's a registered trademark that
can be used under certain conditions.  And it solves the support
association as well.

2)  'No, Fedora is a "supported version" of Fedora.
It is has been forked into something that Redhat
is no longer comfortable in associating themselves
with directly.'

Of course they do not openly associate themselves _commercially_
with Fedora.  They can't.  There are all sorts of _real_issues_
in doing so.

But behind the scenes, it's the Red Hat we've come to know as
trust.  The one that releases _everything_GPL_.  How many
_commercial_ distributors do that (other than SuSE _now_ that
Novell owns them -- yes!).

3)  "Mandrake doesn't have this problem.
     Neither does Debian."

Mandrake has _real_problems_ on many levels.  But I won't go there.

As far as Debian, you can_not_ compare a "community" to a "commercial"
distro.  But now that Fedora exists, you can compare it to Debian.

How much is Lindows--er, Linspire and Xandros funding Debian?
Now compare that to Red Hat and Fedora.

4)  Application/hardware certification and service contracts

Red Hat basically found it _impossible_ to offer app/hw certification
on a distro that came out every 6 months, and then support more than 2
years.  So they switched to an 18 month model, with 5+ years.

That was RHEL.

But Red Hat continued to believe in its 6 month model for cutting edge
adoption.  So they continued with RHL.  But then they realized that
RHL was not ideal for such a distro, now that the commercial interests
were removed.  And thus Fedora was born, to better address what the
community wanted, since the commercial interests were no longer needing
RHL.

The result is that RHEL really allows Red Hat to be the _first_ Linux
vendor to offer a 5+ year supported, ABI compatible distro.  That was
the #1 _real_issue_ with _all_ Linux distributions versus commercial
UNIX and Windows -- _no_one_ offered one.

5)  Various comparisons of Red Hat and GPL v. Microsoft and BSD

IBM, Red Hat and even the first, commercial Freedomware success story
in Cygnus (founded 1989, now owned by Red Hat) have found that when
you pair cut-throat business tactics with a GPL focus, _everyone_ wins!
Even Novell now realizes this.

The community gets _guaranteed_ software that will _never_ be taken
away by licenses like BSD that allow "embrace, extend, extiguish."
At the same time, IBM and Red Hat are able to be the most exclusive,
heavy handed negotiators that will let them get the revenue.

It's the _perfect_balance_ that Stallman had hoped for, now reality.
You _can_ make money with GPL software -- better than _any_ other
Freedomware license as we're seeing.  Why?  Because it's all about
copyright.

Cygnus (who led the original charge) and now Red Hat
FSMLabs, Troll Tech and many others who dual-license niche software as
well
Even Novell now recognizes it, and is GPL'ing a lot of Ximian and SuSE
stuff.

Microsoft hates the GPL because it forces them to license.
Microsoft _has_ licensed various software from GPL copyright holders.
But it cannot be extended as the GPL version keeps improving while
Microsoft's "aged" commercial version falls behind.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. -- Engineer, Technologist, School Teacher
b.j.smith at ieee.org