Red Hat End-of-Life

[pll at lanminds.com]

In a message dated: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 07:02:29 EST
Randy Edwards said:

>I was wondering if anyone had comments on how this will impact them; will it?

You send e-mail to list wondering if anyone has any opions? :)

Seriously though, I think it's the right decision for them.  They're 
making money in the Linux world, but just barely.  Giving away something
which is produced by someone else whom you have no control over is a
tough business model, yet, miraculously, they're still hanging on!

They need to cut out as much old stuff as possible.  The more they 
support, the more their costs go up.  That's fine if you can also 
incease your income, but right now, that's harder than ever.

In the sw world, you want people to buy a support contract but never 
actually use it.  It's like insurance.  The insurance companies hate 
when people actually try to collect on what they've paid for.

>    I worry about what this will do to folks on the "low end" of the 
>Linux-using spectrum.  People with half-decent IT staffs will either pay the 
>costs or work out manual update procedures.  But what's the mom-and-pop-type 
>shops to do?

What have mom-and-pop type shops always done?  Linux is not a 
zero-cost solution.  It's a *cheaper* than the alternative solution.
If they are currently using a MS solution, their costs are already 
higher than if they were using a RH solution.  So where's the problem?
MS has been pretty consistent about coming out with a new release 
every couple of years and forcing people to upgrade.  RH is simply 
saying that, if you purchase our product, we will support your 1 year 
(or whatever the time frame is).  That doesn't mean you can't 
continue to use the product, or that you *must* upgrade, simply that 
you no longer have that 1-800 number to call.

I don't really see the harm in that.  If they want that phone number 
to call, they need to spend some money.  They have 2 alternatives, do 
it themselves, or hire a sysadmin/support person.  Both options cost 
them more than forking out a few hundred dollars for a support 
contract.  Now, the intersting part is the time span of 1 year.  In 
general, I don't see this as being a major problem, since it only 
means that RH is no longer supporting that version.  If you have a 
support contract, you have them get you through the upgrade.  If you 
don't have one, you get yourself through that process by whatever 
means you choose.  In most cases, there isn't a need to upgrade after 
only a year.  So, you start out with RH 8.0, and you stick with it 
for 2 or 3 years.  Every 2 or 3 years you fork out $300 for a new OS, 
which you can then install on every system in your business.

I don't see it as being that bad.

>    Package management has always amazed me with Red Hat, since I come from a 
>Debian background (to me, a RH system isn't complete until you install apt-get

<RANT=HIGH>

Okay, first, let me say that I love Debian, and I love apt.  That 
being said:

	APT IS NOT A PACKAGE MANAGEMENT TOOL!!!

It's DEPENDANCY RESOLUTION TOOL.  There is a HUGE difference.  Saying 
you like apt better than rpm is like saying my house is better than 
your sports car.  There is no comparisson here, they are totally 
different.

Now, compare dpkg to rpm.  Which one of those do you prefer?  Do you 
even know the difference?  Do you care?

If you want something to do dependancy resolution for RH, get up2date 
or current.  Then, compare those to apt.

</rant>

>I always assumed that the RHN would do magical things if you 
>ponied up the money, and I similarly assumed that RH would have to move 
>towards a longer release cycle and more stability in its product line.  This 
>move seems to be counter to that idea.
>
>    Thoughts, opinions, predictions of its impact?

The longer they have to support a release automatically increases the 
number of releases they need to support.  Linux evolves too quickly 
for them to not issue a new release at least every 9-12 months.  If 
they're supporting a release for 18-24 months, that means they now 
need to support at least 3-5 different releases.  That's costly to 
them.

No, I think they're doing the right thing.
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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