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The new Red Hat Linux
It's official: the Red Hat Linux product is no more. The changes announced
by the company can be found discussed, in detail, on the Red Hat Linux Project page. In
summary, the changes that have been announced are:
There are a few implications of this change for Red Hat Linux users. Essentially, if you use Red Hat Linux, you will have to pay more. Either you pay more cash by moving up to the enterprise offerings, or you pay more in effort by finding bugs in the distribution, and, if you can, helping to fix them. A Red Hat Linux box has traditionally been a great bargain: a relatively small amount of money for a stable, well-engineered distribution containing millions of dollars worth of software. Red Hat Linux will remain a good deal, but the terms of the bargain are changing a bit. For high-clue users who would like to be a part of the distribution development process, the changes will certainly be a good thing. Red Hat has traditionally been developed in a relatively closed mode. Every now and then a new release would show up, but the process by which the development came together was distant and opaque. This distance is one of the reasons why many hackers have preferred more community oriented distributions, such as Debian, Mandrake, or, more recently, Gentoo. Red Hat clearly hopes to tap into the development community by opening things up in this way. If things go well, the result could well be a better, more quickly evolving distribution. Other users will have to think about whether they want to download and manage new releases themselves, buy a boxed copy from some other retailer (the number of such products is certain to increase), or switch to a different distribution. All three are good options, including the last one. One of the great benefits of using Linux is that you can switch to a different vendor if you don't like where your current vendor is going. This change is a big step for Red Hat; the company did, after all, get its start by selling boxed Linux distributions at retail. As Linux and the market have evolved, it has become clear that the retail channel is not where the real money is to be made. Red Hat, being a public company needing to bring in serious revenue, is focusing on the markets that, it hopes, will keep it going. So retail sales are out. But Red Hat cannot afford to lose its base distribution and the many people who help test it. Thus the Red Hat Linux Project. With luck, Red Hat can have it both ways: serious revenue from the enterprise market while building a larger development community. (Log in to post comments)
Retail Sales Posted Jul 24, 2003 2:37 UTC (Thu) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] Information on Red Hat retail sales is confusing. The FAQ says:The Red Hat Linux releases will not be sold through the retail channel as a shrinkwrapped box. This statement is followed three sentences later by: Further information on the retail product line will be forthcoming closer to the product launch plan this fall. How can there be further information on the retail product if it no longer exists? Is this referring to the enterprise edition perhaps, or some other yet to be announced product line? Or is there still a retail product, but it's no longer packaged as a shrinkwapped box? What on earth could that be; SmartMedia in a plastic egg? [probability 0.001] It all seems a bit vague to me, but then so many things do...
Red Hat Linux vs. "retail product line" Posted Jul 24, 2003 3:23 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link] Red Hat Linux is dead (as a retail product). Red Hat Inc. is clearly referring something else as their "retail product line."
The new Red Hat Linux Posted Jul 24, 2003 3:56 UTC (Thu) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] <i>"or you pay more in effort by finding bugs in the distribution"</i>It could turn out less buggy. A more open development process might have solved the problems with KDE in RedHat 8.0.
The new Red Hat Linux Posted Jul 24, 2003 16:30 UTC (Thu) by daenzer (subscriber, #7050) [Link] ... because someone would have paid more in effort by finding bugs in the distribution.
And the problem with no retail boxed set is??? Posted Jul 24, 2003 4:29 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] What is the problem? While some people like to be able to buy a boxed set at a retail store... that is only a small percentage compared to those who prefer to download the ISO images and burn their own... or get a copy from a friend... or get a copy from a book... etc. They did mention that it is more apt to show up in magazines as a result.Red Hat is still committed to releasing the ISO images so the availability of the software really isn't changing much. If your local retailers are anything like my local retailers... it always took them a month or so before the latest release hit the shelf... and by that time I had downloaded it myself, distributed it at work and at the LUG meeting. Then when I saw it on the shelf, I picked up a copy just to help support the company... but in a retail environment, there are so many people who get a cut. I'm confident that Red Hat will offer media and printed manuals on a direct sales only basis if a significant number of people want it. I wonder what the numbers are? How many unofficial copies of Red Hat Linux versus the official copies for the past several releases? I would think that a guess of 1,000 to 1 would be a little on the low end. I don't blame Red Hat for abandoning a distribution channel that is behind the times. Third parties will certainly continue to sell cheap install media. Red Hat has always offered their manuals freely in a number of formats suitable for printing so documentation isn't really an issue either. I wonder if they would consider a large, single hard-back book containing all of their manuals from the Red Hat Press? In any event, I don't see the lack of a boxed set slowing down their adoption rate one bit. A bigger factor in businesses switching from the community product to the enterprise product is the support life cycle... that has nothing to do with the boxed set. I'm amazed that people aren't happily raving that Red Hat has opened up their distro and making it more Debian like. Unless they somehow totally screw it up that means more software, easier access for third party developers... and community based decisions... as long as they remain within the project objectives. It also means faster development (once the community is established) and more rapid deployment. Did their stock go up? I didn't notice. If it didn't, it should have. :) This isn't only a good move, it's how they should have done it from the beginning.
And the problem with no retail boxed set is??? Posted Jul 24, 2003 16:10 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] > I'm amazed that people aren't happily raving that Red Hat has opened up> their distro and making it more Debian like. Unless they somehow totally > screw it up that means more software, easier access for third party > developers... and community based decisions... as long as they remain > within the project objectives. It also means faster development (once the > community is established) and more rapid deployment. My opinion is that a good many people who complained about the old closed way, wont praise the new way because its not in their nature to. [IE the only thing they will complain about is that they don't have one more thing to complain about.]
How does this affect the trademark game? Posted Jul 24, 2003 8:01 UTC (Thu) by alspnost (subscriber, #2763) [Link] I wonder whether Red Hat will change the way it enforces its trademark on the basic distribution (despite the recent further tightening). After all, they were trying very hard to ensure that their identity was only stamped on official boxed sets bought from (and supported by) them. Since these official boxed sets will no longer exist, does this mean that the cheap CD duplicators will be allowed to sell "Red Hat Linux" again?Sure, I suspect the answer is no, but I'm just vaguely curious as to how this all fits together.
How does this affect the trademark game? Posted Jul 24, 2003 8:49 UTC (Thu) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]
I was wondering this. But the Red Hat FAQ says:
Q: Can I redistribute Red Hat Linux? (My emphasis). That reads to me as though the existing Cheapbytes / Cheep Linux (etc) as-cheap-as-possible distributions will continue to be expected to rebrand the product, but there would be room for a Linux distributor to make a commercial agreement with Red Hat to provide "third-party Red Hat Linux" CD-based distributions available. Now that there isn't an official Red Hat boxed set for them to compete against, I would imagine that Red Hat would be open to any suggestions that were basically good for Free Software and provided another source of income for Red Hat.
James
How does this affect the trademark game? Posted Jul 24, 2003 16:13 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] I would guess that the answer is no also. The problem is that the law makes it the owners problem to strictly enforce their trademark or lose it. You can lose it if you find out that someone has a vaguely similar looking image but you didnt send a pack of lawyers on them as soon as possible.
The new Red Hat Linux Posted Jul 24, 2003 8:39 UTC (Thu) by heunique (guest, #728) [Link] I think something in the LWN article is missing...For corporates desktops and developer's workstation - it is recommended to buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS, either a basic ($179) or standard ($299). Of course, no one stops any IT Manager from buying 1 copy and installing it to 100 machines, it's just that the up2date service will be only available for one machine and support is also for 1 machine only.
The boxed sets.. Posted Jul 24, 2003 10:49 UTC (Thu) by deatrich (subscriber, #25) [Link] The boxed-set thing has always been a difficult proposition. I have in some form or other all boxed-sets (except two I think) since 3.0.3 But most of them have come from buying them online from redhat or others in Canada or the States, or mostly from hardware vendors who provide smaller boxed sets with the hardware. I think I've only ever bought a few boxes in a store, and that was long ago. For the last few years I have found it difficult to even find a boxed Red Hat set on store shelves, at least here in Europe. Mostly you find SuSE or Mandrake. Moreover in Europe when you try to buy boxed sets online from Red Hat Europe, the shipping fees are so attrociously high that it takes your breath away. It will be interesting to see how hardware vendors sell RH linux-installed systems. What will vendors like Dell and Transtec offer as Red Hat pre-installed systems in the future?
The new Red Hat Linux- Not backporting bug fixes can be bad! Posted Jul 24, 2003 11:09 UTC (Thu) by croftj (guest, #332) [Link] It's a sad day for Red Hat users. This means that when they get the newest version of a program with the latest bug fixes, they are getting the latest features and dependencies which could very well require them to update other packages or worst, break a packages interoperability with other packages on the system (with or without an update). I hope other popular distributions don't follow suit.
The new Red Hat Linux- Not backporting bug fixes can be bad! Posted Jul 24, 2003 13:15 UTC (Thu) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link] Actually I see this as a slight advantage. As long as RH does good dependancy tracking, as they currently do in their on-line updater ("Red Hat Network"), you will get everything necessary to to stay up to date when you update a component. Back before Unix existed, we had that sort of "continuous update" in Multics, and it was very easy for the SiteSystemAdmins to stay current. Of course, there were also some pretty strong compatability guarantees, too! --dave
The new Red Hat Linux- Not backporting bug fixes can be bad! Posted Jul 24, 2003 16:00 UTC (Thu) by ordonnateur (guest, #6652) [Link] Seems to work ok for Gentoo.
The new Red Hat Linux- Not backporting bug fixes can be bad! Posted Jul 24, 2003 18:54 UTC (Thu) by mongre26 (guest, #4224) [Link] I handle all my dependency issues with Yum (http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/) anyway and redhat network or not that is my preferred method. Especially when it allows me to create a custom redhat distro for my users and keep them up to date with the latest of my packages.Also there will still be security updates, they will just track with the version updates from the originators of the software rather than "redhats" version. This is I think acceptable and manageable with the proper tools for handling dependencies. Redhat could have really left everyone who uses the basic redhat out to dry. With this movement I am hoping they will be able to keep their roots while at the same time building a successful business. Now if only they could make their AS server product a little more up to date I might actually use it. Talk about painful to install on anything but classic SCSI devices. Terrence
Red Hat Linux "X" Posted Jul 24, 2003 16:50 UTC (Thu) by cpeterso (subscriber, #305) [Link] Clues are beginning to surface that the next version of Red Hat will be called "Red Hat Linux X", like Mac OS X. You can pre-order Jon "maddog" Hall's "Red Hat Linux X for Dummies" on Amazon right now. The book's release date is October 2003.
The new Red Hat Linux Posted Jul 25, 2003 11:18 UTC (Fri) by leandro (guest, #1460) [Link] One less difference from Debian... I wonder if they are secretly regretting having forked from dpkg and deb into rpm? The point is, this rpm/deb division is unfortunate, and was begun by Red Hat on the excuse of expediency. Conectiva has already adopted apt, but not dpkg and deb. Hopefully dpkg 2 will be the standard, mixing rpm elements such as signatures as per ongoing conversations. Each time rpm-based distros have less differentiation; time someone should think of borging into Debian... perhaps as subprojects. Debian certainly could use the manpower.
The new Red Hat Linux Posted Jul 31, 2003 13:33 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link] This sounds remarkably stupid.If people wants the nice paper boxes to the extent they will go out and buy them in a store, why doesn't Red Hat want to sell it to them? It can't be that much work to prepare the boxed distributions (and if it really is, they've hired the wrong people). The whole story has a faint ring of tie-induced suffocation: refocusing the business to increase the stock-holders value... Let's hope not to much is destroyed in the process. Red Hat has always been a role model for the other commercial distributions on how to license their work. But this was all before the ES/AS line of products.
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