RedHat Enterprise Linux

[bill at billhorne.homelinux.org (Bill Horne)]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 12:57:23PM -0500, gboyce at badbelly.com wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, bill.horne wrote:
> 
> > Let me be the first to say it: this is sad. [snip]
> > 
> > I withdraw my suggestion. With due credit to the Beauregard Parish
> > Library, it's a faustian quest to try and build a distro where the GPL
> > licensee doesn't obey the license. [snip]
> 
> If you object to what Redhat is doing, you can always make it harder for 
> them.  I think that less people would willing to pay the enterprise 
> version pricing if a freely available version of it was available.
> 
> White Box (or another rebuild of RHEL) gives back an option to people who 
> prefer to use Redhat, but need long term support and cannot afford the 
> prices that redhat is offering.
> 
> Until I find another distribution that provides a nice easy method of 
> network installing like kickstart, I think White Box is going to work out 
> great for me.

I object to being taken for a sucker: the "world domination"
campaigns, the played-like-a-cheap-organ appeals to anti-M$ sentiment,
the oh-so-convincing explanations of the need for "backporting", and
the betrayal all come out like a morality play that everyone knows the
ending to except the actors.

I didn't think it was possible, and that's what pinches.

White Box won't give anyone any options other than some encouragement 
to crash a party where they're not welcome: as a practical matter, 
corporate purchasing will write the checks no matter what a techie might 
say about "GPL". The scam fits perfectly into what every IT manager is 
used to doing, and it will succeed for that reason.

After all, dispensing immense sums of money and pretending that they
know what's going on is what they do, and that's what RH is counting
on: inertia, hubris, and a wink-wink-we-knew-it-all-along arrogance
that will accept anyone who is as venal as Redmond. After all, better
the scoundrel we know than the idealist we could never be,
n'est-ce-pas?

I'm not David. They're not Goliath. I have other battles to fight, and 
must ration my time. If you choose to help Whitebox, that's your karma, 
and I wish you well: I'll be following Perens et al and keeping a weather 
eye out for the next big thing I should avoid.

Bill, "Older and Wiser" Horne