[Techtalk] RedHat - Fedora Linux

[Michelle Murrain]

On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 15:37, caitlynmaire at earthlink.net wrote:

> To the struggling corporate entities who wanted something 
> free or cheap, and to small businesses, the new division between 
> Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise may not be acceptable.  They may 
> choose another distro which has a low cost but commercially 
> available support package for small business.  Red Hat 
> doesn't seem terribly concerned with this market.

Agreed.

> Also, I look at the price points Red Hat has set for Enterprise
> 3 and I think that a lot of people who saw them as an 
> inexpensive alternative to Microsoft will think again.  

Well, that depends. If they consider Linux simply the "free" alternative
to windows, then you are right on. But if they are more savvy, and see
Linux as a more secure and stable alternative, then they may well not
mind paying a bit for RHE. And, I've noticed that RackSpace now offers
dedicated servers with RHE - so they must know something.

> I don't know if this will help Red Hat turn a profit.  I seriously 
> doubt it.  I also don't think this will help corporate acceptance
>  of Linux at all.

I'm not so sure. I've been involved in a number of projects where we're
spec-ing out RH servers, and I've been amazed at how many people
*reflexively* choose to order RHE.It's like they are used to plunking
down $ for server software, and it's not such a huge deal to them.

> In some ways, for individuals, Linux is returning to it's roots.  You 
> have small community based distros that may employ a handful of
>  people or simply be labors of love.  You have Fedora that has 
> commercial backing but are still claiming to be community based.  
> We, as individuals, aren't likely to buy an expensive "enterprise" 
> distro like United Linux wants to be, and which Red Hat 
> Enterprise and SCO (if it survives, which I doubt) claim to be.

Yeah, I agree with this - although there is the wild-card, Lindows.

> Linux may end up once again being of, for, and by geeks.  I 
> don't know if that's good or bad.

If your scenario plays out: bad.

-- 
.Michelle
---------------------------
Michelle Murrain
tech at murrain.net
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"Our capacity to make peace with another person and with the world
depends very much on our capacity to make peace with ourselves." -- Thich Nhat Hanh