[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Novell SuSe DVD's... -- The Fedora Project is Red Hat ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sun, 2004-09-12 at 11:18, Wayne Dahl wrote:
> I believe the answer to this would be no.  RH put out several emails
> last year stating that RH 9 would no longer be supported after December
> (if I remember correctly) of 2003 the same time as they stated that RH 8
> would no longer be supported.

Red Hat commercially "End-of-Life" (EOL) Red Hat Linux 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0
as of 2003Dec31 and Red Hat Linux 9 as of 2004Apr30.  This included
ending RHN access, although UP2DATE for both Red Hat Linux and Fedora
Core _still_ goes to the _same_ Red Hat servers.  ;->

The Fedora Project is now in charge of the entire support of both the
Legacy Red Hat Linux line as well as the new Fedora Core (fka Red Hat
Linux), Fedora Extras (fka Fedora Project, Fedora.US) and Fedora Legacy
(both Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core updates after "Legacy" tag).

Even a _year_ before Fedora was announced, in 2002, Red Hat announced it
would only support Red Hat Linux versions for 12 months.  The reasoning
was because companies were "standardizing" on ".1" releases and no
longer moving to the last revisions (e.g., ".2" or ".3") release in a
version.  That meant Red Hat was maintaining 6+ revisions simultanously
-- companies can't expect that for free (hence Red Hat Enterprise
Linux).

Now Red Hat _never_ made good on that announcement.  They _continued_ to
support the Red Hat Linux 7 (CL2) releases for almost 3 years.  The
Fedora Project, run almost _entirely_ by Red Hat, specifically the
Fedora Legacy repository, still maintains updates for Red Hat Linux
7.3.  When Red Hat Linux 9 EOL'd on 2004Apr30, Legacy took over as
well.  Critical updates are made, and less updates are as popularity
dictates.

Not surprisingly, updates for Red Hat Linux 7.2 (CL2.2, not the lsat
revision) and 8.0 (CL3.0, definitely the ".0" in CL3) were discontinued
due to lack of popularity in requests.  This is the _new_ Red Hat
model.  The name isn't there for serious and legal trademark purposes
that Red Hat was really getting reamed over with the USPTO.

So why does Red Hat continue to support updates via Legacy for 4+
years?  The obviousness is in the truth.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL) is supported for 5+ years.  Updates to CL2 release (Red Hat Linux
7), help RHEL 2[.1], updates to CL3 releases (Red Hat Linux 8, 9 and
Fedora Core 1) help RHEL 3, etc...

But instead of continuing to support _every_single_revision_, Red Hat is
only supporting the last revision in a series.  These releases are
tagged as "Legacy" and not current.  The current versions are the .0,
.1, etc... in the _current_ CL release -- which matches up to
forthcoming (or released) EL release.

If you are still confused, please read Section 4 of my FAQ.
  http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/files/temp/RH-Distribution-FAQ-4.html  

I've received as much praise for Section 4.3 on the distribution history
as much as I have for the GCC/GLibC history in Section 3.3.  If you
understand _why_ things have happened, they make complete sense.

-- Bryan

P.S.  Red Hat can't publicly state all this for real legal
considerations.  I have verified I'm "on-the-money" with select people
off-list though.  I can_not_ repost what they have said publicly.  It's
more than them just losing their jobs.  It's about opening up Red Hat
legally.  Please understand.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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