A bit of a rant, but some serious point on Fedora.
What is the delay due to on the release? I do not understand what this means: Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible.....
This may have been posted before, but I missed it.
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
Relating to some previous posts on RedHat moving to enterprise...
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not. Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
Rant over.
Gus
On Monday 03 November 2003 06:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
Rant over.
Gus
Perhaps now you know why release dates were never publically announced. Too many things that could go slightly wrong and push a release back by any number of days.
Of course, of RH had continued to take the hardline on not divulging any release date info, the flames would never stop about being a non-open company. *shrug*
Slip happens. Deal with it.
Come on guys get over it, it's only a few days. I would rather see Fedora delayed a few days and have things work a bit better than to have it rushed out the door.
I like what Redhat has done here. We can't expect RedHat to remain around forever if they don't make a profit. Sure it would be great if they support us free, forever, but it just isn't in the cards.
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 06:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
A bit of a rant, but some serious point on Fedora.
What is the delay due to on the release? I do not understand what this means: Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible.....
This may have been posted before, but I missed it.
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
Relating to some previous posts on RedHat moving to enterprise...
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not. Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
Rant over.
Gus
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 09:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
What is the delay due to on the release? I do not understand what this means: Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible.....
Would you rather they released it as-is and without ~some~ comfort level?
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
Odd. At Fedora.redhat.com I don't see any statement indicating Fedora is targeted at the professional user and enterprise.
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
It seems rather short-sighted to jump ship without waiting to see how Fedora develops over a release or two. Or calling RH and asking what 60/70 seats of RHEL would run. Or waiting for the projects that will build/bundle their own RHEL-based-clone w/o any of the (c) or license infractions.
But go ahead... jump... you've got plenty of options. Install them all.
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not. Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
You don't have to be sure. If you want to be sure, buy RHEL with support licenses, then you can be sure RH will be there for you for the agreed time frame. And if they're not, scream at them, hold payment, whatever...
Just sit back, relax, and wait for the ride. You have until April before RHL 9 is EOLed, which gives you some time to watch how Fedora goes, negotiate RHEL licenses, look at clones, etc. etc. etc.
Cheers, -Ali
-- OpenPGP Key: 030E44E6 -- Was I helpful?: http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=packetknife -- I don't do diplomacy. You may have noticed. -- Donald Rumsfeld
On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 07:57:41AM -0700, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
What is the delay due to on the release?
RH found a non-technical problem that had to be fixed before the release. They're making new iso releases and will make them availible ASAP.
This may have been posted before, but I missed it.
It has... over and over and over again.
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
??? They postponed the release of iso images to fix a problem in the distribution and you don't see this as a good sign?
Emmanuel
What is the delay due to on the release? I do not understand what this means: Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible.....
A set of what should hopefully have been gold CD images were made but found to have some problems last minute. That needs fixing and things like the US export laws mean its not a simple case of replace package, recompile and test. (and the retest takes time too)
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
You think other software doesn't slip. Its just in the "professional" world nobody told you the date anyway, or they give loose 'safe' dates to allow for slippage.
Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although
The Fedora trademark rules are looser precisely so other people can do boxed editions.
looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
Its the next generation of the same code, with more flexibility and rapid change to get you new stuff. It depends what you are looking for. Fedora certainly isnt for everyone. It isn't some kind of "crippled" system however.
Alan
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 06:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
What is the delay due to on the release? [snip] This may have been posted before, but I missed it.
It was posted a few days ago, by Michael K. Johnson. It was posted again today, too, I think, in another thread.
I am chuckling a bit over here -- Fedora's beating the h*ll out of certain _other_ products as far as, um _release delay_ goes.
-M
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Monday 03 November 2003 14:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
Score: -1, Troll
- -Andy
El lun, 03-11-2003 a las 08:57, Mark Hutchinson escribió:
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not. Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
Gus, I launched a thread titled "RHEL 3.0 or Fedora for a production environment?" Take a look at the posts under the thread at http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2003-November/thread.html#00...
My conclusion is that Fedora will be a "a complete, general purpose operating system" (ie, good for servers). With a release out every 6 months, and updates from fedora.redhat.com for only two months after that, if you want a patched OS you will either have to upgrade every 8 months or so, or get updates after that from the Fedora Legacy Team (www.fedora.us/wiki/FedoraLegacy).
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
A bit of a rant, but some serious point on Fedora.
Not really.
What is the delay due to on the release?
Read the list archives, or the previous mails in your mail folder.
I do not understand what this means: Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible.....
Read the list archives, or the previous mails in your mail folder.
This may have been posted before, but I missed it.
Read the list archives, or the previous mails in your mail folder.
This is not a good sign for those waiting to see if fedora will still be a professional distro.
Oh really? Kindof funny. Other people consider the sign of Red Hat intentionally delaying a release in order to fix some very important last minute issues to be a loud sign that Fedora is a serious distribution, and not just some rag tag thrown over the fence.
There are always last minute surprises when creating a large OS distribution the size of Fedora, and previously Red Hat Linux. I don't remember a release ever that wasn't delayed a slight amount be it a day or a few days, etc. The only difference here, is that in the past Red Hat did not officially announce the public release day of the operating system, so the official release was "when it is ready", and so if there was a need to ever delay a release by a day or two, or three or four or whatever in the past, you never were any the wiser now were you? ;o)
In the spirit of openness, and as a showing of commitment to being open, you have now been priveledged to have previously been given a hypothetical target-release-date by Red Hat, which was in past OS releases not given out to anyone ever, and for this very reason - that people go hyper paranoid if a date is not met exactly. All manner of FUD gets spread now doesn't it. ;o)
And so, now people can perhaps understand /one/ of the perfectly rational reasons why Red Hat did not previously preannounce OS distribution release dates, etc.
So what has happened then? Oh my gosh! Some last minute surprises were found that demanded Red Hat attention to fix prior to being released! Oh wait a minute... That's not news, thats more or less to be expected in any major OS project's release planning. In fact, I'll go as far as to say, every release ever made from now on, will probably miss it's publicized target date for one reason or another. Why? Because that is the way it is with software development. No matter what date you set, you always have a couple of unexpected surprises pop up. Not necessarily major ones, but big enough to warrant fixing in order to have a nicer release.
I think the majority of users appreciate this openness of the Fedora Core development model very much, and are very happy to see that Red Hat considers Fedora Core an important enough release to delay it for last minute problems like this, and from the majority of people's thoughts that I've seen today, I think most people are happy to see this, even if they're a bit disappointed they have to wait a couple more days.
What is a couple of days though in the big picture really? I mean, we could fake the dates and add in a week of buffer time, so that everyone thinks the release is on the 10th of November, but then plan everything and work on everything to hit a date a week earlier, but then that's not exactly being open about the project's development now is it? ;o)
With this public knowledge being provided, comes the responsibility by people reading and interpreting the knowledge to realize these things are just natural parts of the software development process in general. Perhaps parts they were shielded from in the past or were not any the wiser about (and didn't need to be). However, with the Fedora Project taking on a community link now, and with the goal of having more community participation and contribution/interaction in the future, it's can't really work unless we let people know these kind of things as soon as possible.
Relating to some previous posts on RedHat moving to enterprise...
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat?
Who could really say? ;o) From the majority of feedback I have seen, most users are more than happy to either switch to one of the RHEL product options available, or to continue using the freely available OS previously known as "Red Hat Linux" which is now known as "Fedora Core" and is being made a more community oriented project.
I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
I suspect that depends a lot on what types of service and support individuals and companies out there require for their machines. It also depends on how much money or time they'd spend trying to support their OS installations themselves. If people honestly look at their total cost of ownership for running Linux systems, and that includes their own personal time, and the time of their employees, etc. they should compare these various factors with the cost of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux very carefully. Some users misjudge the value RHEL provides initially until they think of the real value they get from using Linux in their business, etc. in the first place, and they think about the true amount of work and time that Red Hat's Enterprise Products will be saving them.
I'm sure there are also various users to which RHEL may not meet their given needs, and for them, they may wish to look at Fedora Core, after fully understanding the purpose and project goals of the Fedora Project, and clarifying anything they don't quite understand. Of course there will likely be other options available such as 3rd party support, and other distributions too.
Each person should try to consider the various options they have available, and choose the one that best suits their needs. Hopefully that will be RHEL or Fedora, but if not, hopefully it's got Linux inside anyway. ;o)
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat.
That remains to be seen yet really. Some people will of course be of that opinion, but it's just that really - an opinion. Many people differ greatly in opinion, and believe the Fedora Project's goals, and Red Hat's movement in this direction are innovative and fairly unique in many ways. That's individualism at work. ;o) Feel free to speculate, but only time will truely tell.
I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not. Perhaps still including a box set would have been a good idea. Although looking through the mailing list, is Fedora up to the task of running on a server anymore? I am not sure.
I've come to the conclusion over many years that if you are very very big, and you make changes to pretty much anything, you will upset some people greatly, and you will please other people greatly as well. No matter what the change is, many people are resistant to change and will be against the change without even waiting to see if it works out or not. This is of course simple human nature, and is to be expected. The bigger you are, the more you get to see it with every small thing you do. It's in many ways just like politics. No matter who you vote for, they never seem to completely do what you had hoped. They also can never please everyone out there, for every decision they make will be loved by some, and hated by others.
In the end, you realize the age old adage is true: You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. That cliche holds true today as it ever did. Once you experience the deep truth to this, you ask yourself the next question: "What do I do then if I can't please everyone all of the time?"
The answer to that of course, is that you try to come up with fresh interesting ideas, try to be innovative, and try to stay on top of things, pushing technology here and there, taking a few chances here and there, etc. You come up with some goals, and then you aim to achive them and strive to do your best. You know all along you wont produce something 100% perfect, but you know you can do a great job which pleases the majority of people in a big way, and so you set out to do that. Everyone will have their own quirks and gotchas when everything is said and done, but the main thing is that progress and evolution can't occur if you stick your head in the sand and plod along on the same old path always. Sometimes you need make major changes and try new ideas out.
I feel that the newfound openness and joining with the community in such a larger and more direct way, has been needed for a while now, and that Fedora now provides the foundation upon which everything can build into new grounds of innovation more quickly and with a lot of good coming out of the end result.
We can't predict the future, but we can guide the path to the future in many ways, and have influence on it's outcome. With the Fedora Project being community based, everyone else can participate in the processes now and more and more as time goes on and infrastructure is put into place.
Hope this helps to think of things in a more wider and open minded sense that perhaps some people hadn't considered before.
Take care, TTYL
Mark Hutchinson wrote:
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to, but fedora does not seem like a solid bet. I pay for RH subscritions and have 9 installed on about 60-70 servers, and have purchased the box sets before, but I dont like the way Fedora popped up. Are others going to keep Fedora on thier servers?
I personally plan on running Fedora on all my servers. I beliuve, because I work on it, that Fedora will on the average be of equal or higher quality than RH in the past. To me Fedora wont be very different than the earlier RHL except a different name, more frequent bugfix packages between releases, and a larger package selection from Fedora Extras.
Warren
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 19:57, Warren Togami wrote:
I personally plan on running Fedora on all my servers. I beliuve, because I work on it, that Fedora will on the average be of equal or higher quality than RH in the past. To me Fedora wont be very different than the earlier RHL except a different name, more frequent bugfix packages between releases, and a larger package selection from Fedora Extras.
One question: how much work will the migration from one release of FC to the next be? I know that going from FCT1 to FCT2 to FCT3 has so far been nothing more than a 'yum update', at least for me. Can I reasonably expect more of the same?
In message 1067904606.19054.1.camel@ripley, Ben Steeves writes:
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 19:57, Warren Togami wrote:
I personally plan on running Fedora on all my servers. I beliuve, because I work on it, that Fedora will on the average be of equal or higher quality than RH in the past. To me Fedora wont be very different than the earlier RHL except a different name, more frequent bugfix packages between releases, and a larger package selection from Fedora Extras.
One question: how much work will the migration from one release of FC to the next be? I know that going from FCT1 to FCT2 to FCT3 has so far been nothing more than a 'yum update', at least for me. Can I reasonably expect more of the same?
It will likely depend on what changes. Consider what happens if for example we need to update GCC and the update has an ABI change. The only way to get a self-consistent system is to effectively update the entire system with binaries built with the new compiler.
jeff
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
How many of you that are currently running RH up to version 9 on many servers are now planning to move away from RedHat? I would certainly prefer not to,
When support for 9 ceases we will re-evaluate the situation for sure.
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
WELL SAID!
RH have damaged there excellent name with this move, and being with the distro since it first came to life many moons ago, I never thought I'd see the day where I would even *dream* about considering using another flavour, but sadly RH have forced that into a reality, that unless reversed, I feel will also see thousands more move away from the distro.
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 16:37, Res wrote:
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
[...]
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat.
[...]
WELL SAID!
RH have damaged there excellent name with this move, and being with the distro since it first came to life many moons ago, I never thought I'd see the day where I would even *dream* about considering using another flavour, but sadly RH have forced that into a reality, that unless reversed, I feel will also see thousands more move away from the distro.
I completely disagree.
Before Fedora was announced, I was about to give up on Red Hat (after using 7.3, 8, and 9, every day, all day) and begin searching for a distribution with a better update system, more frequent updates, and more flexible software sources.
I was starting to experiment with Knoppix and Gentoo. Red Hat 9 plus Ximian Desktop 2 plus FreshRPMs.net plus yum wasn't bad, but it was still too frustrating finding, adding, and updating all the extra software I wanted.
But Fedora looks like it will be EXACTLY what I want: fast, frequent updates, lots of rapid bug fixing, and lots of easy-to-configure software sources.
I also really appreciate the move to a community based approach, and am making much more of an effort to test the builds, and find and report bugs than I ever did for previous Red Hat releases. As soon as I have time I'll probably even start fixing bugs and submitting patches. I never did that for previous Red Hat relases.
I'm sure I'm not the only one. Perhaps some people will switch away from Red Hat because of the changes to Fedora, but I'll bet that there will be a net INCREASE in users.
Torrey
Before Fedora was announced, I was about to give up on Red Hat (after using 7.3, 8, and 9, every day, all day) and begin searching for a ... ... making much more of an effort to test the builds, and find and report bugs than I ever did for previous Red Hat releases. As soon as I have time I'll probably even start fixing bugs and submitting patches. I never did that for previous Red Hat relases.
I'm sure I'm not the only one. Perhaps some people will switch away from Red Hat because of the changes to Fedora, but I'll bet that there will be a net INCREASE in users.
Torrey, you're not the only one. I have exactly the same thoughts and experiences. In my opinion, Red Hat did an excellent move of reorganizing their software offerings and development into RHEL and Fedora.
Fedora brings to community what many of us have been looking for: a distribution for "early adopters, enthusiasts and developers", as Fedora's web site says. Finally you can get all the latest and greatest for Red Hat based distribution effortlessly.
If you are running a business, you'll be considering RHEL or Fedora, depending on your budget and in-house expertise. If you are a DIY-type Linux hacker, you'll go with Fedora (or with any other Linux distribution) in production environment. OTOH, if you need certified platform with vendor support, you'll choose RHEL.
I just can't understand why some people have hard time comprehending that Red Hat is a company, which ultimate goal is to make money and create value to its shareholders. The only way to make money is to charge someone for something. In their case, it's RHEL subscription (plus training, professional services, et al.) and that keeps them in business. That'll help them to pay salaries for dozens of developers that work for Red Hat and produce Open Source software for RHEL, Fedora users and the whole OSS community.
Quoting from redhat.com: "Balance means building a successful company without sacrificing customer trust. And creating shareholder value without severing our ties to the open source community."
IMO, they have pretty well kept that balance. And if you're going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. Some people will not like/tolerate Red Hat's move, but that's a small minority, IMHO. I'm more than happy to see Fedora being incubated by Red Hat. It's a community project, backed up by one of the largest Linux vendors, and that gives the project more leverage than anything else.
All right, that's enough opinions for today. :)
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 20:59, Torrey Hoffman wrote:
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
[...]
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat.
[...]
WELL SAID!
RH have damaged there excellent name with this move, and being with the distro since it first came to life many moons ago, I never thought I'd see the day where I would even *dream* about considering using another flavour, but sadly RH have forced that into a reality, that unless reversed, I feel will also see thousands more move away from the distro.
I completely disagree.
As do I. I've been using Linux since late 1996/early 1997, and we use a lot of Red Hat at my office -- probably somewhere in the vicinity of 200 boxes total. Some of it is 7.x on Alphas, some of it 7.3, 8.0 or 9 on x86. We are moving our workstations to Fedora Core soon after the "gold" release.
Because of the tremendous effort and thoughtful planning that Red Hat (and others) put into the Fedora project before backing it, this distribution is likely to become everything that United Linux could have been but didn't... community-driven, open-ended, freely available and guided by true experts who are not trying to just drop by and cash in on the Linux hype. (*cough*Caldera*cough*)
The changes that have already been made (such as to up2date) are going to make it even easier for me to maintain all my systems at home and work, *without* having to rely on paying Red Hat for their Red Hat Network offering. And they didn't have to do that, but they *did* -- simply because they have a LONG history of Doing The Right Thing.
I think Fedora is fantastic, fecund, fabulous and forward-thinking. I'm looking forward to the next ten years of Red Hat's work in the Linux field, and can't wait for the opportunity to participate a little more in the process.
Mark Hutchinson wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community. If they bothered to look into the goals of Fedora Linux, they'd see that Red Hat is addressing the things we've been asking them for over the last several years.
They've created a brand that can be distributed freely. You couldn't do that with Red Hat Linux. The name was trademarked, and that trademark had to be defended. As a result, cheapbytes.com and others couldn't sell discs branded Red Hat Linux. They'll be able to sell Fedora Core discs.
Red Hat has also opened up (or is in the process of doing so) development to their community. Now the people who use the product will also get their chance to contribute to the development process. This is something that the Debian community has bragged about for years. Now that it's a feature of Fedora Core, those same people are talking about it as if it were a drawback.
Red Hat hasn't abandoned Linux. They're giving it wings. Their programmers who previously worked on Red Hat Linux and desktop applications for the distribution will continue working on those applications (if I understand correctly). The code will be included in Fedora Core before it sees RH Enterprise. Fedora Core is not an official Red Hat product, but it is funded by Red Hat, and that's something that Debian lacks.
Fedora is also a trademark of RedHat
See for details: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/guidelines/
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon Messmer" yinyang@eburg.com To: fedora-test-list@redhat.com Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 8:08 PM Subject: Re: Delay? Looks bad for Fedora
Mark Hutchinson wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did
it,
but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community. If they bothered to look into the goals of Fedora Linux, they'd see that Red Hat is addressing the things we've been asking them for over the last several years.
They've created a brand that can be distributed freely. You couldn't do that with Red Hat Linux. The name was trademarked, and that trademark had to be defended. As a result, cheapbytes.com and others couldn't sell discs branded Red Hat Linux. They'll be able to sell Fedora Core discs.
Red Hat has also opened up (or is in the process of doing so) development to their community. Now the people who use the product will also get their chance to contribute to the development process. This is something that the Debian community has bragged about for years. Now that it's a feature of Fedora Core, those same people are talking about it as if it were a drawback.
Red Hat hasn't abandoned Linux. They're giving it wings. Their programmers who previously worked on Red Hat Linux and desktop applications for the distribution will continue working on those applications (if I understand correctly). The code will be included in Fedora Core before it sees RH Enterprise. Fedora Core is not an official Red Hat product, but it is funded by Red Hat, and that's something that Debian lacks.
-- fedora-test-list mailing list fedora-test-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list
They've created a brand that can be distributed freely. You couldn't do that with Red Hat Linux. The name was trademarked, and that trademark had to be defended. As a result, cheapbytes.com and others couldn't sell discs branded Red Hat Linux. They'll be able to sell Fedora Core discs.
Fedora is also a trademark of RedHat
See for details: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/guidelines/
True, but according to the Q&As, Cheapbytes will be able to sell Fedora disks, which is something they couldn't do with RH - Pink Tie Linux 9.0 was what they sold instead.
"Fedora Core releases will be available as ISO images for both CDs and DVDs, and will also be available through other channels such as third-party online sales of physical media. . ." http://fedora.redhat.com/about/faq/
rg
Gordon Messmer wrote:
Mark Hutchinson wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community. If they bothered to look into the goals of Fedora Linux, they'd see that Red Hat is addressing the things we've been asking them for over the last several years.
They've created a brand that can be distributed freely. You couldn't do that with Red Hat Linux. The name was trademarked, and that trademark had to be defended. As a result, cheapbytes.com and others couldn't sell discs branded Red Hat Linux. They'll be able to sell Fedora Core discs.
Red Hat has also opened up (or is in the process of doing so) development to their community. Now the people who use the product will also get their chance to contribute to the development process. This is something that the Debian community has bragged about for years. Now that it's a feature of Fedora Core, those same people are talking about it as if it were a drawback.
Red Hat hasn't abandoned Linux. They're giving it wings. Their programmers who previously worked on Red Hat Linux and desktop applications for the distribution will continue working on those applications (if I understand correctly). The code will be included in Fedora Core before it sees RH Enterprise. Fedora Core is not an official Red Hat product, but it is funded by Red Hat, and that's something that Debian lacks.
This is the greatest that I have seen the Linux OS state. With the addition of having the ability to get programs from different select repos, it has really ballooned into a great OS.
I agree with all the statements above. My only worries surround getting a hold of repos with questionable programs available.
I think that some sort of security gaurdian might be a great idea to prevent snoops and malicious attacks on the more open - open source environment though. An implementation of this marvel might be tough to accomplish though.
I feel things will keep progressing with this project. The split with rawhide compatibility, has me wondering though, about the departure from Red Hat Linux and the more fast paced Fedora project.
Jim
This repository is based upon fedora.us rules and packaging guidelines. It will (hopefully soon) be open to anybody wanting to provide good contribs.
D
Le mar 04/11/2003 à 03:07, Jim Cornette a écrit :
I agree with all the statements above. My only worries surround getting a hold of repos with questionable programs available.
Help! I've looked through archives, google etc. but can't find an answer to my current prob ...
Both up2date and apt keep telling me there are no updates when there are.
If I run up2date it comes back with a list of packages but says they are 0 bytes and I can't proceed.
Opening the port on the firewall and shutting down the firewall altogether didn't help.
Thanks
John
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-test-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-test-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dams Sent: 04 November 2003 04:46 To: fedora-test-list@redhat.com
This repository is based upon fedora.us rules and packaging guidelines. It will (hopefully soon) be open to anybody wanting to provide good contribs.
D
Le mar 04/11/2003 à 03:07, Jim Cornette a écrit :
I agree with all the statements above. My only worries surround getting a hold of repos with questionable programs available.
Dams wrote:
This repository is based upon fedora.us rules and packaging guidelines. It will (hopefully soon) be open to anybody wanting to provide good contribs.
D
Le mar 04/11/2003 à 03:07, Jim Cornette a écrit :
I agree with all the statements above. My only worries surround getting a hold of repos with questionable programs available.
Thanks for the link. It errors out with fedora-release-1-2 installed. I'll try it with an earlier release installed.
My Current interest is in a program to communicate with my Creative Jukebox in Linux. I tried kionjb and couldn't get it to compile. (too new of a lib installed). I then installed a binary rpm called gnomad2 which read the files on the jukebox, but was stuck in busy mode. I'll check for similar programs on the site listed. (When yum, apt and up2date start working).
Jim
Yes, because there is no support for Fedora Core 1. You may simply replace the $releasever by 0.95 in yum.conf to make it work. FC1 support will be available as soon as the official announcement is made.
Le mer 05/11/2003 à 00:02, Jim Cornette a écrit :
Dams wrote:
Thanks for the link. It errors out with fedora-release-1-2 installed. I'll try it with an earlier release installed.
Dams wrote:
Yes, because there is no support for Fedora Core 1. You may simply replace the $releasever by 0.95 in yum.conf to make it work. FC1 support will be available as soon as the official announcement is made.
Le mer 05/11/2003 à 00:02, Jim Cornette a écrit :
Dams wrote:
Thanks for the link. It errors out with fedora-release-1-2 installed. I'll try it with an earlier release installed.
I got things working with the older release version installed. I'll answer yes to the instalation when Fedora Core is green lighted.
yum upgrade Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Red Hat Linux 0.95 - i386 - Base Server: Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (stable) Server: Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (testing) Server: Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (unstable) Server: Red Hat Linux 0.95 - Updates Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers Finding obsoleted packages Resolving dependencies Dependencies resolved I will do the following: [update: fedora-release 1-2.i386] Is this ok [y/N]:
I answered y to the question, then tried it again and got the error 404.
Server: Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (stable) retrygrab() failed for: http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/1/i386/yum/stable/headers/header.info Executing failover method failover: out of servers to try Error getting file http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/1/i386/yum/stable/headers/header.info [Errno 4] IOError: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
Thanks for the lead.
Jim
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 15:46, Jim Cornette wrote:
Thanks for the link. It errors out with fedora-release-1-2 installed. I'll try it with an earlier release installed.
It sounds like yum is trying to "autodetect" the release version when the "1" trees at fedora.us and related trees have not yet been created.
Warren
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 20:59, Warren Togami wrote:
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 15:46, Jim Cornette wrote:
Thanks for the link. It errors out with fedora-release-1-2 installed. I'll try it with an earlier release installed.
It sounds like yum is trying to "autodetect" the release version when the "1" trees at fedora.us and related trees have not yet been created.
yum doesn't autodetect anything.
if you have fedora-release-1-2 then $releasver in the yum.conf becomes 1
there is no 'autodetection' is is simply a variable expansion.
-sv
On Tuesday 04 November 2003 01:08, Gordon Messmer wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community.
That didn't seem to be what the poster was saying. He was expressing the view -- which I share -- was that the development may be bad _for RedHat_.
To me, the RH/Fedora thing is just very confusing, and I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking (or reading) about it.
I'm actually running Fedora on one desktop, and RH-9.0 on another, and both are running perfectly. But I knew exactly where I was with RH-6-7-8-9, and I don't feel I know exactly where I am with Fedora.
Like many others, I am occasionally asked about commercial installations, and I've always recommended RedHat. I probably still will do so, but not with the same enthusiasm.
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
On Tuesday 04 November 2003 01:08, Gordon Messmer wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they
did
it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community.
That didn't seem to be what the poster was saying. He was expressing the view -- which I share -- was that the development may be bad _for RedHat_.
To me, the RH/Fedora thing is just very confusing, and I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking (or reading) about it.
I'm actually running Fedora on one desktop, and RH-9.0 on another, and both are running perfectly. But I knew exactly where I was with RH-6-7-8-9, and I don't feel I know exactly where I am with Fedora.
Like many others, I am occasionally asked about commercial installations, and I've always recommended RedHat. I probably still will do so, but not with the same enthusiasm.
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
-- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
-- fedora-test-list mailing list fedora-test-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list
I see your point. But to me...it just seems that (obviously) RedHat is focusing more on the enterprise now, and with moving the free RedHat distro to Fedora, I see Fedora as being and possibly having the same and more functionality as RedHat 6-7-8-9 did...(without the commercial support, though).
On Tuesday 04 November 2003 15:08, Timothy Murphy wrote:
That didn't seem to be what the poster was saying. He was expressing the view -- which I share -- was that the development may be bad _for RedHat_.
I see no argument in favor of that. RH will concentrate on the features that makes RH Linux a viable solution for enterprises. As an IT manager I'd be happy to have a linux kernel that is tested by millions of linux users and has comercial support.
To me, the RH/Fedora thing is just very confusing, and I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking (or reading) about it.
Sorry, no one can help you with that...
I'm actually running Fedora on one desktop, and RH-9.0 on another, and both are running perfectly. But I knew exactly where I was with RH-6-7-8-9, and I don't feel I know exactly where I am with Fedora.
Changes can be disturbing ... but they are the key for progress.
I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
I would be happy to hear some arguments.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community.
On the contrary, the Freed Software Community will benefit (a lot).
That didn't seem to be what the poster was saying. He was expressing the view -- which I share -- was that the development may be bad _for RedHat_.
To me, the RH/Fedora thing is just very confusing, and I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking (or reading) about it.
I have been reading about it. I surely clarifies the situation.
I'm actually running Fedora on one desktop, and RH-9.0 on another, and both are running perfectly. But I knew exactly where I was with RH-6-7-8-9, and I don't feel I know exactly where I am with Fedora.
You will; just read about it ;-)
Like many others, I am occasionally asked about commercial installations, and I've always recommended RedHat. I probably still will do so, but not with the same enthusiasm.
You may need some time to feel confy about it.
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
They made a wise decision. RH heavily is supporting Fedora.
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Timothy Murphy wrote:
On Tuesday 04 November 2003 01:08, Gordon Messmer wrote:
The move to fedora was a mistake for RedHat. I understand why they did it, but they went too far and discarded loyal users ( some paying some not.
There seem to be a lot of people voicing the opinion that this is a move to abandon the Free Software community.
That didn't seem to be what the poster was saying. He was expressing the view -- which I share -- was that the development may be bad _for RedHat_.
To me, the RH/Fedora thing is just very confusing, and I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking (or reading) about it.
Agreed, and most of the nonprofessional sysadmins are probably in the same boat. I can only assume, for those of us in that boat, they are guessing that we either go with Enterpise or be happy with Fedora.
I'm actually running Fedora on one desktop, and RH-9.0 on another, and both are running perfectly. But I knew exactly where I was with RH-6-7-8-9, and I don't feel I know exactly where I am with Fedora.
Agreed, if I have to go partial cold turkey, I may as well look outside the RH umbrella entirely.
Like many others, I am occasionally asked about commercial installations, and I've always recommended RedHat. I probably still will do so, but not with the same enthusiasm.
If you don't use RH enterpise at home nor at work, how could you recommend it to anyone?
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE. I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in RH's new scheme. Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to see where the chips fall.
Randy
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE. I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in RH's new scheme. Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to see where the chips fall.
I think the whole Novell thing will be interesting as well, but there will be room for two big distros I think.
More about Fedora though, think about this: a.) Linux consumers don't, as a majority *like* caldera and Suse's approach, to force you to pay for "free" software. We want the companies to make money, and many of us choose to buy things like StarOffice, but we like knowing at least we -could- have it for free. The home users are less lucrative, more picky, and more difficult to support. The server market has compatible hardware, easier, more tested desires under unix in general, and deeper pockets. Something like RHEL is actually best for the enterprise. It doesn't matter if a web server had the latest gone, or even apache, it matters that it work reliably for 24 hours a day. For home users though, even many non-technical ones, they want to try the latest gadgets. They want iTunes to work, and their iPod, and their lexmark printer, and their Cannon scanner. It all should work, and magically.. even without the manufacturer's support. Worse yet, they (we) don't like when we hear about some new piece of software, like mozilla 1.5 or gnome 2.6, and we can't easily install and try it.
Look at the advantages of redhat and mandrake for home users: a. easy to install b. easy to set up c. a lot of things "just work", very polished. d. Well supported by closed source plug-ins, etc. e. often gets the newest features.
But then look at the advantages of debian: a. MANY MANY more packages available, from large to small. b. MUCH better dependancy handling, and simplified installation. c. Community support. d. you can stay on a continuously updated release.
Redhat is just seeking to combine these, and I think it's great. Before, if you wanted to install something not "in" redhat, like say.. Zapping (a tv viewer), you had to go find an RPM, and that RPM might have pulled in 5 dependancies.. and those packages might have been the same as other RPMs that were named differently, needed by something else, and conflicted. Redhat obviously needed to increase the width of their home offering... but to officially support even more packages, to spend more time and energy (and money), for the users who they don't make any money off of?
What do you realistically think the alternative to FC was? I think it's one you would like a lot less!
-- noah silva
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Noah Silva [Mailing list] wrote:
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE. I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in RH's new scheme. Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to see where the chips fall.
I think the whole Novell thing will be interesting as well, but there will be room for two big distros I think.
One would hope there is more room then that.
<snip>
What do you realistically think the alternative to FC was? I think it's one you would like a lot less!
I don't know, but it certainly looks like I'll be find out. Since I was happy with the service RH was providing at $60 @ year, I was planning to stick to it and update my server from 7.3 to 9.1 (I got 9.0 and Severn running on other sytems) as EOL was coming up for support. I'll probably upgrade to 9.0 an wait and see what to do prior to my subscription expiring for RHN.
So when is the stable release of Fedora due out?
One would hope there is more room then that.
I am sure niche markets will mean there is. (like Embedix), but big players.. I am doubting it.
<snip> > What do you realistically think the alternative to FC was? I think it's > one you would like a lot less!
I don't know, but it certainly looks like I'll be find out. Since I was happy with the service RH was providing at $60 @ year, I was planning to stick to it and update my server from 7.3 to 9.1 (I got 9.0 and Severn running on other sytems) as EOL was coming up for support. I'll probably upgrade to 9.0 an wait and see what to do prior to my subscription expiring for RHN.
So when is the stable release of Fedora due out?
Yesterday, but from the release schedule page: "November 3 2003 - General Availability Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible."
Why not download it when it comes out,and take it for a spin? Just like 8 to 9, it's much the same, jet with a lot of nice little additons. The biggest thing you will notice is a massive search-and-replace of "red hat" to "fedora core". ;)
RHN is still there, and last i checked, you could still use it, you just have two new options. Everyone was installing apt and yum and using third party repositories anyway, redhat made things easier for home users by officially picking a repository, and building yum and apt support in. Now you can have all three protocols on one system.
-- noah silva
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Noah Silva [Mailing list] wrote:
One would hope there is more room then that.
I am sure niche markets will mean there is. (like Embedix), but big players.. I am doubting it.
<snip> > What do you realistically think the alternative to FC was? I think it's > one you would like a lot less!
I don't know, but it certainly looks like I'll be find out. Since I was happy with the service RH was providing at $60 @ year, I was planning to stick to it and update my server from 7.3 to 9.1 (I got 9.0 and Severn running on other sytems) as EOL was coming up for support. I'll probably upgrade to 9.0 an wait and see what to do prior to my subscription expiring for RHN.
So when is the stable release of Fedora due out?
Yesterday, but from the release schedule page: "November 3 2003 - General Availability Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible."
Yeah, that doesn't answer my question though. =) Next Monday? Next month? Since Fedora is for home/hobby folks, could the announcement be worded a bit more in nontechnical terms? "Respin" is a new term for me, and I've been using RH since 6.x days.
Why not download it when it comes out,and take it for a spin? Just like 8 to 9, it's much the same, jet with a lot of nice little additons. The biggest thing you will notice is a massive search-and-replace of "red hat" to "fedora core". ;)
RHN is still there, and last i checked, you could still use it, you just have two new options. Everyone was installing apt and yum and using third party repositories anyway, redhat made things easier for home users by officially picking a repository, and building yum and apt support in. Now you can have all three protocols on one system.
Yeah, RHN is still there for me, but not for long. :\ Or is Fedora crew planning a RHN service replacement?
So when is the stable release of Fedora due out?
Yesterday, but from the release schedule page: "November 3 2003 - General Availability Delayed due to respin for several days, will be available as soon as possible."
Yeah, that doesn't answer my question though. =) Next Monday? Next month?
"several days" sounds to me like... less than a week, certainly less than a month.
Since Fedora is for home/hobby folks, could the announcement be worded a bit more in nontechnical terms? "Respin" is a new term for me, and I've been using RH since 6.x days.
I also was wondering what "respin" myself! (PR?)
Yeah, RHN is still there for me, but not for long. :\ Or is Fedora crew planning a RHN service replacement?
Depends what you used RHN for. If you just used it for updates, then you are getting expanded service. If you used the web management stuff, then you migth be disappointed.
-- noah silva
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 01:33:10PM -0500, Noah Silva [Mailing list] wrote:
"several days" sounds to me like... less than a week, certainly less than a month.
Give the man a prize! :-)
Since Fedora is for home/hobby folks, could the announcement be worded a bit more in nontechnical terms? "Respin" is a new term for me, and I've been using RH since 6.x days.
I also was wondering what "respin" myself! (PR?)
Sorry, I thought it was in wider use when I penned that...
"spin" is one of many jargon words for creating the iso image. (I've always assumed it came from creating phonograph records and some association with that, but I really have no idea or data to back up that assumption and would welcome any correction from anyone with real data...)
By extension, to "respin" is to create a new iso image.
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 09:23, Randy Vice wrote:
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Timothy Murphy wrote:
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE. I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in RH's new scheme. Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to see where the chips fall.
Randy
I don't see this as being bad timing at all. Actually quite the opposite, which is why I posted the Novell/SUSE release in the first place. The writing is on the wall regarding the major commercial distros, which is why Mandrake will be next.
The commercial vendors must focus their core business model where there is revenue to be generated. No, not for the shareholders, but *most* importantly for their employees who depend upon the commercial vendors for regular paychecks that don't bounce. If you lose your employees, you can forget about the customers AND the shareholders...there won't be anything left to have equity in.
If the commercial vendors remain financially viable, they are then in a position to be good citizens to the community at large.
The RHEL/Fedora 'split', in my mind, was a proactive recognition by RH that they needed to change in a fundamental way to remain financially viable and importantly independent, while still remaining committed to the community at large. They did not have to do the latter, but did.
If you gain marketshare in the broad corporate environment, that will eventually flow down to the small office and home user in time.
The home desktop environment is not a financially viable market at this point for any distro, which is why Szulik came out and supports most home desktop users staying with Windows for the foreseeable future (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39117575,00.htm). Those that have the skills or inclination to try Linux will do so, but that is a small percentage of the market...though it will increase over time.
We can debate the facts, but the perceptions are the reality. Until the majority of home users can pick up the phone and call Dell, HP or Gateway, or walk into Best Buy, OfficeDepot or CompUSA and buy a PC with any Linux pre-installed and configured, the home desktop market (including SOHO) will not be broadly viable.
It is also becoming increasingly apparent that as the major community based projects increase in size, the resources required to continue to support them require funding, which is a problem when most users want it (no, *expect* it) for free. So, people can donate money (not just time) to the community projects, corporations can fund them (ie. as RH and Sun are doing) or they become self-limiting.
And...before you point to Debian, look here:
http://www.debian.org/donations
Consider all of the non-profit foundations that have been set up to cover the costs of the infrastructure required (ie. web sites, etc.) to support the major community projects. People may be willing to volunteer time, but there are other costs associated with these projects and in many cases the "hosts" at some point reach a limit in terms of what they can continue to provide without compensation.
I for one hope that Fedora is successful. It can be the fertile ground for leading edge applications and technology, even if at some cost of stability. If it is successful, it likely means that RH is viable and can continue to contribute to the community at large. In that regard, RH can justify funding Fedora as the basis for an R&D platform that supports and feeds the paid-for Enterprise versions, which seems to be the message.
Back to the original title of this thread...it is the basis for my hope. It shows that quality and not a calendar, is the priority.
Ultimately, the marketplace, not evangelism, will determine where Fedora goes and where Linux in general goes. The seeds of OSS have been planted...it is up to us to water and fertilize them. If Fedora fails and you want a community based distro, then Debian may very well become the only viable option. Is that good or bad...time will tell.
Marc
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Marc Schwartz wrote:
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 09:23, Randy Vice wrote:
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Timothy Murphy wrote:
So I don't think RedHat is wicked -- I just think they may have made a commercial mistake.
Agreed, and poor timing as well now that Novell/Ximian is buying out SuSE. I'll DL Fedora when it's released, but I'm keeping a sharp on Novell's Linux distro, they may be wanting to pick up those of us who don't fit in RH's new scheme. Guess the next six months will be an interesting time to see where the chips fall.
Randy
I don't see this as being bad timing at all. Actually quite the opposite, which is why I posted the Novell/SUSE release in the first place. The writing is on the wall regarding the major commercial distros, which is why Mandrake will be next.
The commercial vendors must focus their core business model where there is revenue to be generated. No, not for the shareholders, but *most* importantly for their employees who depend upon the commercial vendors for regular paychecks that don't bounce. If you lose your employees, you can forget about the customers AND the shareholders...there won't be anything left to have equity in.
Question is, now that RH has "dumped" me, should I trust them a second time with RHE or go with Novell/SuSE for enterpise level support for my home server? Or will Fedora support be enough for my taste? Guess time will tell.
<snip>
Randy
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 12:33, Randy Vice wrote:
Question is, now that RH has "dumped" me, should I trust them a second time with RHE or go with Novell/SuSE for enterpise level support for my home server? Or will Fedora support be enough for my taste? Guess time will tell.
<snip>
Randy
That is your choice. If you see it as being dumped, you are free to go elsewhere, as is any customer of any company. You have a choice, as long as the other vendors are also financially viable and around to provide you that choice. We are just beginning to see the shake-out of the commercial Linux market and it will take time for the dust to settle, maybe a few years. Is RH taking a risk here? Sure....but the bigger risk is to do nothing.
People are hesitant when there is change, because change means unknowns...
Fedora Support is community based. If you need to be able to call somebody, then Fedora is not for you. Simple decision. That leaves you with few other choices for paid professional support.
Novell/SUSE is an unproven commodity at this point, given Novell's less than stellar past history with acquisitions. Maybe they will get it right this time, maybe not. Management changes can result in fundamental direction changes for companies, despite SUSE's past history. If you think that this forum has a spectrum of opinion, go read SlashDot, where all the KDE advocates are concerned about the Novell/SUSE/Ximian triangle, SUSE users are concerned about Novell's ability to do this well and yet others about a U.S. company taking over a European distro....
Personally, I would rather see RH financially viable, rather than trying to be everything to everybody. If that means that they have to give up 20% of their present market (or whatever that number is) to achieve that goal, so be it.
I am a firm believer in Pareto's 80/20 Rule:
1. Develop a product to meet the needs of 80% of your target marketplace. Meeting the needs of the other 20% will bankrupt you.
There is also something in business known as "opportunity cost". If I have finite funds and resources, where do I put them? Do I allocate them to something that has a small chance of being profitable or something that has a larger chance of being profitable? Guess where I allocate my finite resources?
The Linux desktop today is not profitable and until fundamental changes take place in the market, that will continue to be the case. That goes for the home web/ftp server market as well...
Those of us, myself included, who paid for RHN, more thank likely got off cheaply, because it is my guess that the revenues from the larger enterprise customers subsidized the costs for us small business users. If the desktop/small business RHN service was stand-alone profitable, I suspect that we would not be engaged in this debate.
If Novell/SUSE/Ximian sees this as an opportunity to take desktop share away from RH, let them go after it. There is nothing like a little competition to drive people. If they can help make it a viable market, ultimately, that will help everyone. In a high tide, everybody's boat floats higher. However, there is no guarantee of that near term.
Marc
On Mon, 2003-11-03 at 09:57, Mark Hutchinson wrote:
A bit of a rant, but some serious point on Fedora.
<snip>
Rant over.
Gus
.::/:. +-------------------+ .:::/:/:. | PLEASE DO NOT | :.:::/:/:.: | FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=: | | '=(\ 9 9 /)=' | Thank you, | ( (_) ) | Management | /`-vvv-'\ +-------------------+ / \ | | @@@ / /|,,,,,|\ \ | | @@@ /_// /^\ \_\ @x@@x@ | | |/ WW( ( ) )WW ||||/ | | | __,,\ /,,/__ ||/ | | | jgs (______Y______) ///////////\//////////////////////\
Jim Drabb
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Not sure if this is really adding to the thread, but I'm curious what other people think:
My situation with RHEL/Fedora is that my company (a large department in an .edu) doesn't need the commercial support of RHEL, we need the release cycle. The fact of the matter is that while we want to go with RHEL department wide, we can't afford it. So, we're being forced into giving Fedora a shot on our workstations, and RHEL ES on our critical servers.
The problem comes in with the fact that no one in our department is going to stand for a Fedora rollout/reinstall every 8 or so months.... to say nothing of the fact that this schedule is going to put our 2 man IT team into a permanent "get ready for the new release" mode. While I realize that the Fedora Legacy project has been created to address these sorts of needs, I guess I'm a little skeptical.
I sincerely apologize for asking this because I mean no offense... but is the Fedora Legacy Project going to be something that people like me can truly depend on?
Thanks so much!
- -Matt - -- Matthew Walburn, RHCE, CCNA MIT Department of Mathematics
* Matthew Walburn matt@math.mit.edu [2003-11-04 19:39]:
My situation with RHEL/Fedora is that my company (a large department in an .edu) doesn't need the commercial support of RHEL, we need the release cycle. The fact of the matter is that while we want to go with RHEL department wide, we can't afford it. So, we're being forced into giving Fedora a shot on our workstations, and RHEL ES on our critical servers.
This is my position as well (though a small dept in an .edu, and just me), and from the tone of many comments/emails all over, I think many people's concern.
In short, I think many people are looking for a similar situation to Debian Stable, or FreeBSD RELEASEs(?) where you can just track the security patches, and only need to upgrade at long(er) intervals.
Is it the intention of the Legacy group to essentially enable a similar maintenance/sec/patch schedule to Debian/Stable and FreeBSD?
Of course "well go use those" is an obvious answer, but I think lots of people would like to stick with Redhat... err, Fedora, if possible.
TG
On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 01:17, Todd Grimason wrote:
Is it the intention of the Legacy group to essentially enable a similar maintenance/sec/patch schedule to Debian/Stable and FreeBSD?
There was definitely some serious conversation a few weeks ago and I think the fact that the Legacy project made it to the Fedora Terminology page is a good indication it's serious. Anyone involved in that want to speak up?
On Tuesday 04 November 2003 17:26, nosp wrote:
Is it the intention of the Legacy group to essentially enable a similar maintenance/sec/patch schedule to Debian/Stable and FreeBSD?
There was definitely some serious conversation a few weeks ago and I think the fact that the Legacy project made it to the Fedora Terminology page is a good indication it's serious. Anyone involved in that want to speak up?
Our current goal is to support a given FC release through the next 2 releases, and a short time into the third release after. A life span of about 17~19 months can be expected for a given FC release. RH will cover the first 7~9 months, Legacy will cover the next 10~ months.
Think of it as a 1-2-3-out method.
Nov: FC 1 is released. May: FC 2 is released. Jul: RH drops FC 1 support, Legacy picks it up. Nov: FC 3 is released Jan: RH drops FC 2 support, Legacy picks it up, release FC1 becomes deprecated. May: FC 4 is released Jul: RH drops FC 3 support, Legacy picks it up. Jul~Aug: Legacy drops support for FC1
lather, rinse, repeat.
RHL 7.3 and 9 are special cases, and will continue to be supported by Legacy for as long as there is community interest in said errata.
The problem comes in with the fact that no one in our department is going to stand for a Fedora rollout/reinstall every 8 or so months.... to say nothing of the fact that this schedule is going to put our 2 man IT team into a permanent "get ready for the new release" mode. While I realize that the Fedora Legacy project has been created to address these sorts of needs, I guess I'm a little skeptical.
I sincerely apologize for asking this because I mean no offense... but is the Fedora Legacy Project going to be something that people like me can truly depend on?
Honestly, I think it will be.
But as a counter point: Have you ever really been able to count on a company? I haven't.
If red hat gets bought up and decides to change directions for some reason guess where you might be with RHEL? Screwed. That's where. You might have a contract that says they have to support you - but they can offer the minimum possible resources to do that and still be w/i the contract rules.
NEVER trust a vendor b/c they are a vendor - I'd much rather trust other opensource developers to do the 'right thing' than I would to trust ANY company to do the 'right thing'. After all, the 'right thing' for a publicly held company is to make the most money for their shareholders.
-sv
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 07:38:07PM -0500, Matthew Walburn wrote:
I sincerely apologize for asking this because I mean no offense... but is the Fedora Legacy Project going to be something that people like me can truly depend on?
The Fedora Legacy project is not going to be worth anything if everyone sits around expecting it to solve their problems for them. One of the most probable reasons (in my mind) for Red Hat's current moves away from long term maintenance on the Fedora/RHL products is that it costs time and money to do that kind of thing.
Most people were not prepared to put in that kind of money, prefering instead to download the isos, use a demo RHN account and throw Red Hat the occasional bone (as in "I buy a copy of RHL at least once a year" - disregarding the fact that they have it installed on at least 10 PCs).
If you're going going to want to "truly depend on" Fedora Legacy, you're going to have to cover some of the cost/time by contributing. Testing, creating new packages, back-porting fixes, bug reporting/triaging, etc.
Just sitting there waiting for someone else to do it is not going to cut it any more.
Cheers! (Relax...have a homebrew)
Neil