Red Hat reports a profit and a purchase (News.com) [LWN.net]

Red Hat reports a profit and a purchase (News.com)

Posted Dec 19, 2003 1:14 UTC (Fri) by zone (guest, #3633) [Link]

From the press release about Sistina:

"The integrated team will work to make all of Sistina's technologies open source and available as a part of a subscription in the first half of 2004."

So it looks like GFS will be open sourced, preserving, AFAIK, Red Hat's commitment to 100% Open Source software, even in their enterprise products.

Yes, and it's about time

Posted Dec 19, 2003 1:29 UTC (Fri) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541) [Link]

Sistina's move to change the license of GFS from the GPL to a proprietary one when it was extremely clear that it was useless without the Linux kernel -- and hence, a derived work -- was a violation of the GPL. I believe Alan Cox did contact them about that, telling them the they were voilating his copyrights, but I don't remember hearing about any response from them.

All around good news. Hopefully this GPL violation will now be resolved and considered water under the bridge.

Red Hat reports a profit and a purchase (News.com)

Posted Dec 19, 2003 10:33 UTC (Fri) by minichaz (subscriber, #630) [Link]

Just a little rant, honest...

<rant>
At least $120 of their "profits" is money they should be returning to me! I've been trying to get hold of Redhat Network customer support for ages but they don't answer emails anymore. I paid for 4 subscriptions (two in September and two in October) and their change of policy will see me only using 1 of these come December 31st. One of my machines I might transfer to Enterprise Server (but Redhats decreasing levels of customer service for ordinary people like me makes this seem increasingly unlikley). I really think that they should at least discuss the refuncing of at least 2 of my subscriptions. My next port of call is to telephone their UK office I guess, I'll let you know how I get on. (I live in the UK).
</rant>

Well... There you have it. Anyone else experiencing problems like this?

By the way I wish all the luck in the world to Redhat and, though they have annoyed me, I don't carry grudges!

Thanks.

Red Hat reports a profit and a purchase (News.com)

Posted Dec 20, 2003 0:36 UTC (Sat) by AlanCox (guest, #4858) [Link]

I am not the official voice of Red Hat on such matters but if you have RHN accounts that are of no use to you past the RH9 end date then mail or phone and ask for your money back after that point.

The Red Hat 8 end of life was long published so I don't think you can complain until April. From April I think you have a very good reason to make such a request.

We want you to be happy, and we don't claim to be perfect.

Red Hat reports a profit and a purchase (News.com)

Posted Dec 20, 2003 13:10 UTC (Sat) by minichaz (subscriber, #630) [Link]

Blimey, I certainly never expected to get a response from Mr Cox! I know that this (listening to RH customers winge) is not really your area and so especially appreciate your input. Thank you.

I disagree with you though. Why should I have to wait until the RH9 EOL date before being entitled to claim my money back? I don't believe (it would be interesting to see what you think about this) that RH9 is suitable for use as a server distro and, even if it was, it's not worth upgrading a RH7.3 server to RH9 only to have to upgrade or change distros again come the end of April. This means that most of my subscriptions cease to be of any use to me at the end of December.

By the way... I bought these subscriptions because I needed the updates quickly and easily and, at the time, there was no "reduced price" option.

Also, if I do have to wait until April to get some money back, I still think it's poor that I have not had a response from Redhat to this effect. It really does feel like they don't give a damn about us ordinary Redhat users anymore. Which is sad because... Well, darn it, I thought it was a great distro and I have always greatly appreciated its free (beer and speech) nature and Redhats good customer support.

I hope the sabatical is going well and the Welsh is coming along nicely. :o)

Thanks again,
Charlie
(minichaz at btinternet dot com)