Redhat 7.x and 8.x sunset

[Grant Young]

<INFO> Progeny is offering updates for Red Hat after RH's EOL starting
January 1 for 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0.  They'll start 9.0 updates on May 1
according to their web site: http://www.progeny.com.  And for pretty
much the same price as RHN. </INFO>

<RAMBLING>
I, too, feel a bit seduced and abandoned by Red Hat.  The thing that
bothers me is that they talked a good game about Desktops about a year
ago with RH8.0 and then they switched tacks after their Enterprise
offerings started getting some traction.  On the other hand, I do see
what they're up against.  I think desktops and servers are two different
products from a support and integration standpoint and I'm not sure any
company is in a position to do both for the long term.  RH has cast
their lot with the server side to maximize their investment.  Right now
the money is on the server side working with ISVs like Oracle and
Veritas to take share away from the traditional Unix vendors like SUN. 
Maybe we're mad because they did both jobs so well we got complacent and
took the work they did for granted.  I don't think getting agitated and
switching immediately to another distribution is going to help.  Red Hat
9 may still be the all around best distribution for a few months for
many people.

I'll stick with RH9 for the time being for my own "production" work
while I experiment with new distros and I think I'd recommend one of Red
Hat's offerings to businesses that want servers with support.  They
should be able to afford it.

I'm playing a bit with Suse 9.0 and will try out others in the next few
months.  I find Suse a bit quirky but I figure its part of the learning
curve.  I fully expect the Novell/Suse/Ximian combination to create a
smooth desktop that will scale to the enterprise.  (Red Carpet is the
sleeper application/service here.)  There is probably a new KDE-centric
distribution that will emerge (sorry about the pun) if the NSX desktop
tilts toward GNOME.

A good commercially successful desktop may be a ways off. :-(  I'm not
saying that good desktops aren't available, just that no one has figured
out how to make them successful commercially.  And when one emerges
we'll bitch about it being Gnome- or KDE- based depending on our
biases.  Scaling them out and support to hundreds of users requires a
different kind of thought and support process (including re-training
Windows weenies).  Maybe Sun knows how with the Java Desktop?  And Santa
Claus is bringing me a nice new job tomorrow. :-)
</RAMBLING>

Oh, and Merry Seasonal Holiday everyone!

On Wed, 2003-12-24 at 15:25, David Kramer wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Dec 2003, Don Levey wrote:
> 
> > ---> SuSE getting bought *might* be a good thing.  The info you mention
> 
> Not if you're a KDE user, like me.  They got bought by the people who own 
> the people who make Gnome.
> 
> > about Mandrake does not leave me with as much confidence as I'd like; they
> > were only one of two that I was actually able to get running with any degree
> > of facility and function.
> 
> Mandrake, Like SuSE, keeps its own distro-specific config files separate 
> from the industry-standard-distro-agnostic ones, and overwrites the 
> standard ones.  This is a complete deal-breaker for me.  I will not 
> tolerate such behavior.  I'm stuck with it for now, but it has already 
> burned me several times on this install.
> 
> > ---> I don't mind a nominal fee to get some "extras" - but as a home user I
> > don't have, and am not willing to spend, corporate-level prices to get a
> > working OS. I'd be happy to stay with RH9, if I could know that updates and
> > notifications would still happen.  The up2date utility is half of the
> > equation; I like the clearing-house concept for information and bulletins.
> 
> OK, here's the bulletin.  After April 2004 (as in 4 months from now), 
> there will be ZERO updates to Red Hat 9.  Not security patches, not minor 
> fixes.  Nothing.  No matter what tool you like to sync with, there will be 
> nothing to sync to.  That is what end of life means.  They pull the plug, 
> and post the DNR order on the wall.
> 
> > 
> > ---> I'm wondering if the two markets were diverging, as far as the effort
> > (shared or not) that they needed to invest.  Geeks may have been their
> > evangelists, but as a company they need the money to stay afloat.  HOw much
> > money is there in giving stuff away for free?  I think it may have been a
> > mistake, but I'm not sure that other options would have been better for
> > them.
> 
> RHAT could have continued to sell a personal user package through mail 
> order and/or stores and no longer allow free downloads.  Or they could 
> charge a nominal fee for up2date for personal users.  All of those would 
> have made them money and me happy.  They chose to completely drop the 
> personal user.
-- 
Grant Young <granty at bellatlantic.net>