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Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Red Hat has announced
global availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.4. ""This
release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a defining milestone in the
evolution of Linux as the backbone of the enterprise," said Paul Cormier,
Executive Vice President of Engineering at Red Hat. "Red Hat Enterprise
Linux in 2002 marked the entrance of Linux in the enterprise. The second
version one year later put us at par with Unix in terms of reliability, and
ahead in terms of value. Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.4 has the performance,
scalability, security, and application portfolio needed to make Linux the
sensible choice for every deployment, from servers connected to client and
desktop systems. This methodical delivery of innovation is helping create
unprecedented value for the customer.""
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Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:47 UTC (Tue) by chill633 (guest, #16013) [Link] Earlier today, before the announcement, I noticed RHEL4 on RHN. I went to download it and there is the link saying "read the EULA" and if you download it, you agree to the EULA.
However, there was no EULA at the time! The license forms had not been updated, yet. What did I agree to? :-)
Okay, okay. I read the one for RHEL3 (again) and the one for RHEL2.1, but there wasn't one for RHEL4.
-Charles
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 9:41 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] No doubt CentOS will soon release their "cloned" version of RHEL (tm and all that). RH appears to be overly pleased.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 10:57 UTC (Wed) by minichaz (guest, #630) [Link] I am a great admirer of the CentOS project and I use the OS on several home servers.
However, I am very disappointed with how some people have reacted to Red Hat's request to remove their trademarks from any CentOS material (website, etc.) and the general attitude of some of the mailing list members. RH have to defend their trademarks and prevent any possible confusion between CentOS and Red Hat's products.
There is nothing in Red Hat's messages to indicate that they harbour any malice towards CentOS and CentOS certainly shouldn't harbour any malice towards them. This is not the first step in them trying to shut the project down or any other such nonsense.
Do not forget that CentOS is, effectively, totally dependant on RHEL. Red Hat are only obliged to release the source code for RHEL along with any scripts, etc. required to build it into binaries. However, they choose to release everything as source RPMs, greatly simplifying the task of cloning the OS.
If people aren't happy with this then please switch to Debian or another distribution not dependent on a private company for quality assurance testing, etc.
As an aside can I also point out that if you are a private company and need an RHEL compatible OS you should be using RHEL and not CentOS, or at least have one RHEL license. Private firms using CentOS rather than buying RHEL are undermining the very product they need so badly.
Thanks,
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 15:14 UTC (Wed) by ami.ganguli (guest, #9613) [Link] It's fair for RH to demand that there's no confusion created by the use of the trademark, but they shouldn't ask them to remove all references. The law doesn't require it, and the only reason CentOS does it is because they can't afford the lawyers to fight. It's legal intimidation.
Obviously if they said "CentOS is a free version of RHES" that might cause confusion and shouldn't be allowed. But Centos does need to be able to describe what it is they're offering and where it comes from. Something like "CentOS is based on the source code of RHES, but is not affiliated with RedHat in any way" is clear and not confusing. They would be entirely within their rights to say that.
Note that you can use a competitors trademarks on your web site and they can't do anything to stop you as long as the trademark is acknowledged and it's not used in a manner that might create confusion.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 21:15 UTC (Wed) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] > It's fair for RH to demand that there's no confusion created by the use> of the trademark, but they shouldn't ask them to remove all references. > The law doesn't require it, and the only reason CentOS does it is because > they can't afford the lawyers to fight. It's legal intimidation.
Oh please. It's not legal intimidation. They don't have to "fight." I really wish people would stop acting like a letter from a lawyer is some kind of devine decree. Did anyone involved with CentOS pick up the phone and talk to the lawyers? From the letter:
"Red Hat does not authorize any person to use the RED HAT marks in association with such redistribution in any fashion, except by express agreement"
So talk to their lawyers and work out an agreement. Clearly there's a middle ground that can be found that allows one to say that CentOS is a derivative of RHEL but is not endorsed by or associated with Red Hat. I can't find anything on the site that indicates that they tried to reach an agreement.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 16:36 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link] >> Private firms using CentOS rather than buying RHEL are undermining the very product they need so badly.
and more to the point they are not getting the true benefit of RHEL - the support. if you want to "wing it", you don't need CentOS...you can just use Debian stable and you will have an environment that is as viable in any production scenario as RHEL. in fact i really don't know what the market for CentOS is...it seems to be little more than an exercise in doing it because it can be done.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 17:06 UTC (Wed) by cowbutt (guest, #25845) [Link] more to the point they are not getting the true benefit of RHEL - the support. if you want to "wing it", you don't need CentOS...you can just use Debian stable and you will have an environment that is as viable in any production scenario as RHEL. in fact i really don't know what the market for CentOS is...it seems to be little more than an exercise in doing it because it can be done.Actually, CentOS is very useful for 'less critical' servers that will not be running third party commercial apps (e.g. Oracle) and/or will be running lots of non-RHEL FOSS (possibly replacing some parts along the way). CentOS gives a stable base to work from, based as it is on RHEL's QA work. Further, it also should give security updates (without upgrading the distro or major components) until 2010. Finally, if your organization already has significant RH expertise, CentOS is easier to support than any other Linux distro (as it's almost identical).
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 20:08 UTC (Wed) by b7j0c (subscriber, #27559) [Link] I still don't see it. If I bother going with RHEL at all, one compelling selling point is the stability of the enterprise behind it. I know RH will be there next year. I know Debian will be there next year (just to show you I don't prejudge free efforts). I really can't say the same thing about CentOS, because I still believe their motivation is not compelling, and I believe the maintainers will feel the same way at some point.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 17, 2005 16:31 UTC (Thu) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link] I know RH will be there next year....I really can't saythe same thing about CentOS
But you don't need to be able to; CentOS isn't the only RHEL
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 17, 2005 5:03 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Unless you are developing things to run on RHEL, but don't actually need ityourself.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 17, 2005 5:01 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Why private firms vs. say, public ones? I know that many large companies usenon-RH RHEL-like distributions because of the cost of patch licensing. Other types of support aren't so much of an issue.
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Posted Feb 16, 2005 16:54 UTC (Wed) by RMetz (guest, #27939) [Link] I checked the announcement and they mentioned that it is based on a 2.6 kernel. I don't really feel like deep diving into the repository; does anyone know which kernel revision they're using and what extra features they've put into it?
Red Hat Launches Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Nope, not 2.6.9 Posted Feb 17, 2005 5:10 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] ... though it might call itself that.Red Hat's kernels contain large numbers of patches. They are probably closer at any given time to some -ac kernel than to any Linus kernel (after all, Alan Cox works for Red Hat), and frequently backport a feature from a newer Linus kernel to a kernel with a lower number. "Enterprise" kernels might disable "risky" features as well.
Nope, not 2.6.9 Posted Feb 17, 2005 10:16 UTC (Thu) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link] They're trying to cut down the number of patches (and push the work upstream instead). Current RHEL / Fedora kernels are based on the -ac patches (since they contain stabilisation and security fixes not found in Linus' kernels). Dave Jones created a couple of pages explaining exactly what goes into the FC3 and Rawhide kernels: RHEL is, he says, similar. James.
Nope, not 2.6.9 Posted Feb 17, 2005 19:13 UTC (Thu) by davej (subscriber, #354) [Link] RHEL was slightly more patched than Fedora was (due to RHEL being a 2.6.9 kernel, and FC being on 2.6.10 now - so it got backports from 2 upstream releases). It still shipped with ~250 or so patches, of which a very large majority are fixes that went into 2.6.10/.11. The number of 'red hat specific' patches compared to older releases are much smaller.
4g4g, exec-shield, and tux probably make up the bulk of the change.
Nope, not 2.6.9 Posted Feb 17, 2005 19:18 UTC (Thu) by davej (subscriber, #354) [Link] the number of features we backported to 2.6.9 from .10/.11 were extremely low (probably in single digits), the number of fixes we backported however make up for the bulk of the backports.
This is somewhat inevitable when a distro draws a line in the sand and says "we're going to ship this version, lets make it stable". Upstream doesn't stand still, and occasionally fixes that happen there are definitly in the "we really must have this fix or people will lose data" variety for example.
It's a tricky balancing act to cherry pick the right set of fixes without introducing risk into a codebase you're trying to stabilise. This is why it takes longer for us to make a RHEL release than it does a Fedora release, a lot more engineering time goes into making such decisions.
(You are correct btw that our '2.6.9' was based on a -ac patch (2.6.9-ac11 iirc off the top of my head).
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