Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Posted Nov 4, 2004 6:58 UTC (Thu) by ninjaz (guest, #2083)
Parent article: Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Personally, I think the plan in Lineox's whitepaper sounds reasonable. The bootstrapping strategy (base it on a corporate standard - Red Hat) is basically the same method Mandrake used to get started.

Regarding drawing resources away from RHEL, I believe RHEL's core market will continue to use RHEL and pay its subscription fees as a matter of religion. Lineox looks like a different take on UserLinux's general idea, but with a migration path & compatibility and without the divisive 'one true way' baggage in each software category (with regard to GNOME/KDE, perl/python, etc) or Debian (and their reluctance to make releases with problems supporting newer hardware as a result... and just plain not being Red Hat, which some vendors hold a prequisite for getting support)

As stated in the whitepaper, Lineox plans to give back as well. But, for customers, provide an attractive choice without giving up on the chance of using proprietary vendor software (which experience suggests a manager type will choose sooner rather than later)

I think competition for vendor support would be a good thing. My experience with 'enterprise' distribution vendor support leads me to believe that the support is primarily a security blanket. The actual service levels have been well below what can be found on mailing lists.

A company strongly tilted toward providing support on a standard distribution could fill the need for organizations which don't have the luxury of expensive security blankets. It could even go the path of providing supplemental OS support for Red Hat customers in cases where Red Hat support has decided a particular support request is not worthy, but the purchasing committee has set Red Hat and their support as a baseline requirement.

What I find especially encouraging is the practicality of the whitepaper. Instead of beginning with a utopian dream or a huge ad campaign with skimpily-clad models (ala LinuxCare) the plan presented addresses the sort of issues I've seen in my experience as sysadmin.

Regarding the arguments against vendor lock-in, I don't find it surprising that they continue. After all, that has been one of the Linux scene's refrains all along.

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