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Progeny To Offer Support For Red Hat 8.0 and 9 214

Posted by timothy from the stupid-decimal-zero dept.
zerocool^ writes "In a previous story it was noted that Progeny would offer support to Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 customers facing an End of Life deadline of 31 December 2003. Progeny has updated their 'transitional software' offerings to include support for Red Hat 8.0 and 9 for $5 per month, per machine. This is great news for IT folks who are faced with the choice of a new OS or abandoned 1-year-old software."
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Progeny To Offer Support For Red Hat 8.0 and 9 More

Progeny To Offer Support For Red Hat 8.0 and 9

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:24PM (#7675136)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:redhat (Score:5, Funny)

      by Cereal Box ( 4286 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:34PM (#7675253)
      It's because they're not Microsoft.

      When Redhat EOLs its products after a year, they're doing so to remain competitive in a changing marketplace, or something like that.

      When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades.

      This is Slashdot, remember...

      • Re:redhat (Score:5, Insightful)

        by johnnyb ( 4816 ) <jonathan@bartlettpublishing.com> on Wednesday December 10, 2003 @12:37AM (#7677442) Homepage
        "When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades."

        I think you missed the point in this article. Whem Microsoft EOLs its products, YOU HAVE NO ALTERNATIVES. When RH EOLs its products, you can turn to any company willing to offer support.

        Since the source code isn't available for Windows, you just don't have that option. Therefore, Microsoft has a much higher responsibility with how it handles product lifecycles.
      • This is Slashdot, remember...

        Home to a million Microsoft astroturfers and trolls, all desperate for their daily fix of Linux news...
      • You got it. Because everyone knows that all those little support payments for being able to use up2date aren't keeping RedHat afloat. All those free downloads are boosting RedHat's profits as we speak!! Oh, no, Red Hat is not about profit. But evil Microsoft, however, whoa! Their tactics are worse than the Khmer Rouge.

        Gimme a break. You know damn well that RedHat wishes they were in Microsoft's place, pressing the boot down on Sun's head just as MSFT is now. This "yay RedHat" crap is all just ignora
    • RedHat? What about Ford? Silly them to EOL supporting the Model T. Now where the hell am I going to get a pistons for a 177CU 22 HP motor? Now how the hell can I top out at 30MPH?

      • Re:redhat (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @08:29PM (#7675728)
        RedHat? What about Ford? Silly them to EOL supporting the Model T. Now where the hell am I going to get a pistons for a 177CU 22 HP motor? Now how the hell can I top out at 30MPH?

        You Red Hat apologists are worse than the Mac fanatics. Can you possibly come up with a worse analogy than that? Red Hat 9 is less than 1 year old and will cease to receive security updates as of the end of April! That's like announcing you'll no longer be able to get parts or service for your 2003 Ford Explorer after April. Oh, and your support warranty? Sorry, that's going to be discontinued, but we'll give you a discount on upgrading to one of our new 2004 Ford Expeditions with the extended warranty coverage for your trouble. People that actually buy into Red Hat Enterprise Linux are morons if they think Red Hat won't do this to them again. How will you like your shiny new copy of RHEL 3 when you find out it'll be EOL'd in a year and you'll be forced to upgrade to RHEL 4 if you want to continue to get basic security updates? Even Microsoft is a LOT better than that. Windows 2000 came out in 1999 and still is updated quite frequently. I have some serious decisions I need to make within the next few months. Do I want to continue with this Linux experiment or go back to a tried and proven company that respects their customers like Microsoft. I can't afford to reinstall my OS every year... Sorry Red Hat, but you lose my business.

        • Re:redhat (Score:2, Insightful)

          by daniel23 ( 605413 )
          Then again, with linux you are not limited to what 1 single supplier thinks they can make you swallow. There are alternatives, debian, SuSE, etc. You are not limited to RH||Microsoft.

          But you knew this, of course, and just left it out for rhetorical reasons.

        • Re:redhat (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I have a heavy commitment to Redhat, without it I don't have to upgrade a server, I have to upgrade many of them. I am not going to spend thousands on Enterprise Redhat, that would be the very reason I went for the "free" OS in the first place. I tried the switch to Debian on one of them and after some mucking around got it going adequately. As someone who's lived their entire linux life in Redhat land, Debian's a nasty shock. The install process is a nightmare and all the conf files are in different places

        • Re:redhat (Score:3, Insightful)

          by GarfBond ( 565331 )
          While, you have a good point (this is a somewhat boneheaded move by RH), you're also missing part of it. The whole reason for this pain is for RH to transition to RHEL, which is designed for longevity (which RH9, essentially the consumer version, isn't). In fact, even though RH just released AS/WS/ES 3.0, they have a page where they outright say that some people might wish to stay with RHEL 2.1 [redhat.com], and they understand this. With every new release that Microsoft makes, they're trying to compel you to upgrade
        • first of all, if you wnat, you can STILL downlaod 5.x, 6.x etc iso's. yes, go to ibiblio.org. they're there. hell, even rh1.x is still there. the point is, with OSS, whether RH or anyone else, a newer version usually includes newer versions of the same software. of course, many times newer versions are compiled against different glibc/gcc versions. by not supporting, they aren't saying you can't get. and they sure as hell aren't saying you can't look at the source, modify, etc. now, is someone gonna

        • Re:redhat (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Pros_n_Cons ( 535669 )
          yeah and in 2000 everyone PAID MS for the product. %99 of Redhats users downloaded it for free then download updates for free. If redhat was extracting a 'tax' from every soul on the planet like MS. I'm sure they'd hire 10 more guys to compile updates longer. Comparing a company that just had its first profit to one that has more money than most country's is f***ing stupid and you should be disgusted with yourself.

          • What was there to buy? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by emil ( 695 )
            • There was simply no point to purchasing redhat boxed sets when the isos were freely available. Redhat never tried to simply sell cds a la cheapbytes. I would have bought them if they had.
            • I would have gladly paid for continued up2date support for 6.2, 7, etc. What I would not tolerate was the sudden cut of 6.2 combined with the surveyware in up2date. I migrated a long time ago.
            • Redhat had no other products that interested me or my organization(s).

            I would have loved to have thrown a few hundred dollars a

            • I would have gladly paid for continued up2date support for 6.2, 7, etc. What I would not tolerate was the sudden cut of 6.2 combined with the surveyware in up2date. I migrated a long time ago.

              Redhat EOL'd 6.2 in March of this year is hardly suddon there has been 6 releases since 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0 and 9 since then.

              I would have loved to have thrown a few hundred dollars at redhat over the last few years. They walked away from the table.

              Sounds like you walked away first. You said you made t

              • Re:What was there to buy? (Score:3, Insightful)

                by emil ( 695 )

                Redhat EOL'd 6.2 in March of this year is hardly suddon there has been 6 releases since 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0 and 9 since then... Sounds like you walked away first. You said you made the move long ago which I pointed out support was dropped after 6 official new releases. Thats quite alot of systems to support.

                Red Hat gave me 3 months between the announcement of 6.2 desupport and the up2date cutoff date; I moved most everything to OpenBSD at the end of March.

                Feel free to justify Red Hat's actions if

        • Isn't it also pathetic this basically says that RedHat is putting their best effort into the Enterprise version, but playing fast and loose with the freely available version?

          Watch out! Don't use Fedora for business. Goodness knows where they got their libraries from, but it's not Enterprise worthy. Want stability? Fork over some cash and we'll give you the real deal.

    • Re:redhat (Score:3, Insightful)

      by crush ( 19364 )
      Errmm perhaps because all companies EOL their products at some stage? Of course if you want to start a company and maintain it on a profitable basis and continue supporting kernel versions and software versions to way back whenever then by all means go ahead and do it. You'll be a hero to all of us.
    • Because they produce and distribute upgrades for free and contribute a great deal to the Open Source community.
    • i dont see why redhat can get away with EOLing its products, and still maintain integrity as a company?

      As the current situation proves, what Red Hat sells has value. Because anyone can step up to the plate and make things work, someone will. Because Red Hat has something of value the company will continue to have value, even if the worst things you might say about what they are doing were true.

      Of course, they have not really dumped anything. The last two interviews that Slashdot had with Red Hat CEO

  • Article Text (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:24PM (#7675138)
    Progeny Transition Service

    NEW! Support added for Red Hat(R) Linux(R) 8.0 & 9

    Beginning January 1, 2004, Progeny will offer software updates for users of Red Hat(R) Linux(R) 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, and 9. This service is based on Progeny's Platform Services technology and will provide a flexible migration path for RHL subscribers.

    Progeny Transition Service includes the following features:

    * Subscribers have access to a software repository containing security updates.
    * Patches will also be available via Novell(R)'s Ximian(R) Red Carpet Enterprise(TM) version 2.0.
    * Subscribers will be notified of security vulnerabilities and available patches.
    * Pricing is $5 per machine per month; or a flat rate of $2,500 per month for unlimited machines.
    * Quotes for custom platform services are available.
    * Limited to x86 support.

    This service is part of Progeny's Platform Services.

  • Strength of OSS. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:24PM (#7675143) Journal
    MS has stopped support for their old stuff and nobody can help. When Redhat stops, other companies can step forward and help (hopefully, even profit).

    • The difference is that most of the old stuff that MS has stopped supporting is for home/end users (like Win98).

      While the kind of users who may use RH are largely a whole lot more tech savvy than those MSFT users.

      This is a big difference, especially given the nature of people you would need to employ to fill these requirements (at Progeny).

      Also, if you notice, the site says this -


      Quotes for custom platform services are available.

      Thats what interests me. I could be wrong, but I think this is a niche
      • Thats what interests me. I could be wrong, but I think this is a niche market that could mean more inflow of money for OSS.

        I think you are quite correct. This is what I have been waiting for, and looking for. I just checked up IPCop, a specialized Linux distro for firewall because I hate having a gig of OS installed for a freaking firewall.

        I read a little, and the service they are offering is interesting to me, since I have several RH9 boxes. They do not have the automation like RHN does, or any inter

    • Careful with the "Strength of OSS" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fygment ( 444210 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:52PM (#7675431)
      Didn't Windows support their stuff for much longer (e.g. Win95)? And with a very long period of backward compatibility (to the detriment of their product) you didn't really need more support.

      Meanwhile, every time you turn around all the Linux distros have changed version. When you go to the use groups for help on an "old" version the reply is: "I don't know, but it doesn't do that in the new version." or "Yeah that was a known bug. The new version takes care of it." Thank gawd the upgrades are cheap $$. If only they were cheap in time.

      • Re:Careful with the "Strength of OSS" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TwinkieStix ( 571736 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @08:22PM (#7675687) Homepage
        Apples to oranges. If it were expensive to upgrade, then people would be giving out different advice. What you are seeing is the easiest solution to the problem. If windows were free, you'd see the messages like "just upgrade to XP and that problem goes away" messages too. This [adobe.com] adobe help article actually adivses people to DOWNGRADE to fix a problem.

        • Re:Careful with the "Strength of OSS" (Score:4, Insightful)

          by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @08:35PM (#7675768) Journal
          > If it were expensive to upgrade

          It IS expensive to upgrade. How long does it take to do it? How much time spent is acceptable to the non-Linux fanatic user?

          • It IS expensive to upgrade. How long does it take to do it? How much time spent is acceptable to the non-Linux fanatic user?

            As if Windows didn't take time to upgrade... *plus* the purchase price. Plus a new user interface... gotta make lots of superficial changes so you think you're getting your money's worth.

            The main difference is that "apt-get install apache" is so much faster and easier than procuring and installing the latest IIS. In the very best case you can use Windows Update, at which point

          • It IS expensive to upgrade. How long does it take to do it? How much time spent is acceptable to the non-Linux fanatic user?

            If you're just upgrading one or two packages, the upgrade could take as little as a minute or two.

            If you're upgrading the entire OS, then it's obviously going to take a good bit longer (a couple of hours).

            On the other hand, this time could be compared to how long it takes to do the periodic clean+reinstall that Win-98 seems to reqire for so many people.

            The pattern of newer so

      • If you want a Linux-based operating system that does not change every month, pick Debian stable. It has not changed for ages, and doesn't break. If you want stability but also want software that is up to date, pick Red Hat Advanced Server or Enterprise. Both are free as in speach, but only Debian is free as in beer.
      • MS offered support, but it has also been very profitable for them. They charge for the call. As to the security issue, I would guess that MS had no more than dozen techs (probably 6) doing actual support of Win3.1/win95/win98 for the last several years.
        In fact, other OSs(MVS, VMS, HP3000, etc) make their profits over the last few years of life as the tech support goes to minimal amounts and few changes occur.
        MS's offering support is no different than what Progeny is trying to do. MS would still be offerin
      • Your forget time. The time it takes to upgrade, aka pay an employee or outsite contractor, is the big cost with Linux. I run a IT consulting business primarily working with SMB"s with under 25 employees that need some expertise, just not all the time. They pay us basically a CIO retainer for so many hours of tech support and advice much like they pay CPA's and Lawyers.

        I used to push Linux big time. I helped over see two medium sized offices switch the vast majority if not all of their desktops to Linu

    • In 1998 the current version of Red Hat was 5.1.

      How many companies are stepping forward to fully support that product?

      • In 1998 the current version of Red Hat was 5.1.

        How many companies are stepping forward to fully support that product?

        First of all, there are not many customers using RedHat 5.1 mainly because upgrading to later versions didn't cost them as much as Windows. The beauty of open source is that even if there is a minority group of companies using RedHat 5.1, they can hire someone to do support and bug fixes for them.
    • At least they support their products for longer than a year. This is part of what Linux distro companies are going to have to deal with if they want to start attacking the desktop market. Upgrading always has a cost, even if you pay nothing for the OS. I'm stil visiting customers who run NT 4.0, Windows 95 (haven't seen Win 3.11 for a while though)

  • Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by gid13 ( 620803 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:25PM (#7675144)
    Maybe they can do the same thing with Windows 98 while they're at it. ;)

  • There will be no up2date support initially... (Score:3, Informative)

    by krbvroc1 ( 725200 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:26PM (#7675164)
    Their initial plans are to roll this out using a password protected website (that could be automated using wget, etc). I would prefer up2date or something similar to keep things updated.

    This seems like a pretty big undertaking...I wish them luck with the resources of patching/recompiling all the packages.

    • Not to be too obvious... (Score:3, Informative)

      by msimm ( 580077 )
      since I'm sure you know this (initial plans..) but for those who missed it they cover this in their FAQ [progeny.com]. Basically if there is enough interest (read $$) to support it they will do it, but they are just testing the waters and would be smart not to invest too many resources until they know we'll pony up (they'll get my $60).

  • $5.00/month/machine -- way to go Progeny (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:28PM (#7675182) Homepage Journal
    It's moves like this by companies, and the simple gesture behind it, which makes me want to subscribe to their program.

    This and the IBM Linux commercial, among other things make me feel good that these companies actually want to help out Linux.

  • Google (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $2500 per month for unlimited machines? Google could get one heck of a deal!
    • I don't think the support covers custom-made systems and I don't think Google could run on vanilla RedHat.

    • Hope Progeny offers patch support for RHEL 3.0! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by poopie ( 35416 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @09:59PM (#7676448) Journal
      there's more than a shred of truth to that quip about Google....

      Let's say you spend $30,000/year for unlimited patch access and you have a 4000 node linux server farm that has an expected usable life of no more than 3 years.

      That's $90,000 for "lifetime" patching of 4000 machines or a $22.50 uplift on purchase price of each individual machine for lifetime patching.

      Redcarpet licenses cost a whole lot more than that!

      I can't wait for Progeny to offer their patching services for Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.0... oh wait... isn't Redhat Planning on making all of their money from Support?!?

      Poor Redhat...

  • Market Opportunity (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snorpus ( 566772 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:31PM (#7675224)
    Support Windows 98 [slashdot.org]
    • Here's your support. [winehq.org]

      Seriously, though. There's no reason to use Windows 9x anymore except in very rare, special (in that warm, "special student" kind of way) scenarios.
      • Seriously, though. There's no reason to use Windows 9x anymore except in very rare, special (in that warm, "special student" kind of way) scenarios.

        I have one Windows game that runs on win-95. It still runs just fine, so I'm continuing to use win95. It's a network game, so when there aren't enough people playing the game, I expect that I'm just going to reformat the C: partition, and that will be the end of using MS software at home.

        Damned if I'm gonna pay $150 for a new OS just to run a $35 game.

  • One more good reason (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:34PM (#7675251) Homepage
    to go OSS, not that many here needed any more encouragement. Imagine if companies could buy support for NT 4 or Win98 for five bucks a machine after next month? There would be some companies still using them ten years from now. Well, some probably will anyway.
    • On Windows systems, at 60$ a year, I think it would generally be worth upgrading, unless it is a server that is doing perfectly fine as those licences are very expensive.

  • How is commercial Linux User Support? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:34PM (#7675254) Homepage Journal
    I mean, I'm a nerd of my own and never used a paid Linux user support, but often helped people and many times I faced a problem I couldn't solve "over the phone".

    So, how good is such user support?

    Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?
    (if the above doesn't seem disastrous enough for you, think of your favourite "heavy disaster" scenario that still leaves some hope of recovery)
    • Not sure about anyone else out there, but when I support a linux machine beyond the simplest procedural things (check here, then check here, etc.), I need to at least have a shell. There are simply some things that don't occur often enough to have an indepth recollection of, and a visual reminder is helpful.

      When someone pays for support, what they're paying for is expertise more than anything. They want their problems fixed, and quickly. Usually it involves simply installing someone else's fix, on occasion
    • Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?

      I think what users of Red Hat 8 and 9 are look

      • Every other boot it comes up with a corrupted root partition and is fixed by fsck without fuss.

        That's OK. I'm not assaulting anyone, but let's get the scenario on.

        Support: So, let's run FSCK on the broken partitions. Type /bin/e2fsck [-options]
        Customer: Segmentation fault.
        Support Oops. We need to get FSCK reinstalled, we can't move on without it. Type rpm -i --force ftp://.../fsck-something-.rpm
        Customer: Segmentation fault again.
        Support: Let's see what we CAN work with then. Try ls, cd, cp, ftp, ssh, wge
    • I don't think user support covers such scenarios.

      I doubt calling microsoft in order to recover your important non-backed up data after a power failure curropted the disk will be successful either.

      User support tends to cover things like: "my email isn't working", "the machine spews an error message at boot", and "the internet is broken".

    • I cant think of any software company that would support you within a situation like this. if your expect support like this the closest I could think of is the platinum (200.00 per month) dell support for servers.

      $5.00 per month gets you access to the downloads, anything else is your problem.
    • Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?

      I am trying to get some support on my Linux b
    • Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. I must get it back up and running with as much of remaining database as possible, possibly fixing any corruption. Is the user support good enough to lead me through such landmine-ridden system?

      Dunno. Maybe ask on one of the Debian lists o
    • Say, I run an important mailing list. A random power failure, severe disk corruption, nobody really knows what works OK and what is broken, week-old backup of data, no system backup, no network, no other computer to move the harddisk, I must work with this broken system. ....

      People who get support at that level from the likes of SUN are usually paying $10,000/month for their support contract.

      For a measly $5,000, I'll hunt down a copy of whatever version of Linux you're running on that box, Install it

  • behold (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:36PM (#7675267)
    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why so many of us use debian on our servers. Sure, the software is 4 years old - but it isn't a headache to support. It doesn't need upgrades, so none are made unless there's a security problem or a bugfix.

    (I'm talking about debian stable, btw)

    On the other hand, I think it's fairly dastardly and unsportsman-like for RedHat to drop support for their older products. Granted, there's a lot of stuff there to support - so why not weed out non-critical applications from the list of "supportable installations"? apache, sql, and other "enterprise-class" software?

    • Re:behold (Score:2, Informative)

      by SharpFang ( 651121 )
      Since all heavy-duty nerds (that could handle mostly every kind of problem) have moved from RedHat (newbie distro) to Debian (zealot distro) it's pretty hard to get decent help on harder RedHat problems.
      Meanwhile, who would pay for user support when all you need is /join #debian on irc.debian.org, ask your question and at worst get redirected to the right RTFM.
      • Harder redhat problems -should- be able to be easily fixed. The underlying system and software is the same. The only time you'll run into problems is when you get non-standard distributor gunk clogging the workings. That, and distros like redhat (or their users) are infamous for just doing the "install everything" option. That's a headache beyond headaches. Then you run into some really messed up situations that are almost impossible to support, such as redundant config files and one version of software som

      • Re:behold (Score:5, Interesting)

        by slamb ( 119285 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @10:42PM (#7676778) Homepage

        Since all heavy-duty nerds (that could handle mostly every kind of problem) have moved from RedHat (newbie distro) to Debian (zealot distro) it's pretty hard to get decent help on harder RedHat problems.

        That's completely false.

        Meanwhile, who would pay for user support when all you need is /join #debian on irc.debian.org, ask your question and at worst get redirected to the right RTFM.

        This support is more about updated packages than someone at the other end of the phone. RedHat's planning to stop releasing security fixes, errata, or new feature (like new hardware support) RPMs for these distributions. You absolutely need those to run it well, whether you buy them from someone or build them yourself. Building them yourself would be a lot of work. Progeny feels there's enough people who want to buy them from someone to make a profitable service out of it. So they're offering one.

        Actually, RedHat's CEO said in a recent interview that this was profitable. They just want to focus on the enterprise market, which is where the big bucks are. Progeny's picking up their scraps, I guess.

  • Go Linux!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @07:47PM (#7675388)
    $5 a month is a STEAL...

    People should jump on this.
    I wish the company doing this well.

    More power to OSS!!

  • Couldn't a company just download the updates to 1 machine, (aka 1 license) and just create their own auto update system? I would assuume these programs exists. So basiclly a company for $5.00 per month could keep their entire network uptodate.......

  • Let's try and clarify (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Tuesday December 09, 2003 @11:21PM (#7677040) Homepage Journal
    I've read an awful lot of "see this is why open source is good" and "hah! Windows 98 had free support for 5 years", so let's just boil this down a little.

    No one (except maybe a few deluded individuals) are claiming that Redhats EOL after only a year is a particularly nice thing to have happen. I'm not that happy about it, but I can push on with Fedora which actually works quite nicely, and all will be well. But the short answer is: EOL after a year is a bad thing no matter who does it. Equally, I think Microsoft supporting Windows 98 for 5 years is not a bad effort all things considered (and there will be fewer who will agree with me on that, but hey).

    I think the point being made here is NOT that Redhat EOLing after a year is good, or terribly acceptable. The point is that, under this system, in the worst case if the company you are with ups stakes and moves to a different market and leaves you in the cold, you have some recourse.

    I think it is great that Microsoft has provided 5 years of support for Windows 98. The catch is, if they were to decide t EOL Server 2003 tomorrow, there's not a whole lot anyone could do about it (especially given the healthy degree of lockin Microsoft has gained). I don't think that Microsoft will do that, but then we don't know. I do recall there was some fuss recently about whether the latest OS X patches were going to available for Jaguar. Had they not been, what would Apple users been left with? Or, to look at it another way, BeOS got seriously EOLd a while ago. There are some fine efforts with OpenBeOS to reconstruct it, but that's no small task, and until they manage something BeOS is effectively dead (well, okay, there's Zeta, but that was a lucky save). This is a demonstration that, in the worst case for a Linux Distro, it's not the end.

    So, to reapeat: EOL - bad. Continuing Support - good.

    Jedidiah.

  • Whats to stop... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mallie_mcg ( 161403 )
    Whats to stop someone with 1000 boxes running their own apt suppository (i know, i prefer this term, seems more errr accurate) from paying $60 per annum for a single box with every package installed, and simply copying the rpm packages from the /var/cache/path to the repository? M
  • Fedora Legacy [fedora.us] will be offering free updates for RedHat versions 7.3, 8.0 and 9.

    The only reason I'd see to pay for support is when things break... Kind of like car insurance you can buy after an accident... hmm.

  • You can't EOL Open Source. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Wednesday December 10, 2003 @01:54AM (#7677860) Homepage Journal
    Others have made the same comment, but not quite so bluntly.

    RedHat may be EOLing their support for 7.3, but as long as there are enough people still using it who are willing to pay the price, there will be somebody who will make critical (and even not-so-critical) patches available -- even if it has to be done in-house.

    For people with (the just recently EOLed [slashdot.org]) Win/98 the options for support are .... well, I might as well just take them out to the barn and shoot them. It's not just difficult for me to provide any meaningfull support for Win'98.. If you believe their EULA, it's pretty much illegal. When MS EOL's XP, you won't even have the option of transferring to a new box/HD if something goes wrong with your hardware, because the OS will just self-destruct, and MS won't want to talk to you about it.

    Another example of what happens when you trust yourself to closed soure is what happened to Israel with hebrew support on Mac Office. It's to Microsoft's advantage to get them to move to Windows instead, so they just decided to not support it on the Mac. No ammount of money that Israel offered them is going to get them to change their mind, because Microsoft wants Israel to be a Windows-only country. It has bull squat to do with cutomer service or direct profit. The country of Israel is at the mercy of Microsoft's (larger) business plan.

    Isreal's answer is that they're moving to Open Office on the Mac -- but wait! OO isn't supported on OSX! That's OK. Israel can pay for a small skunk-works to get it working, and get OO's hebrew support up to snuff. No forcing anybody to do anything there... they want it, they can afford to pay someone to do it, it gets done.
    QED
    First Germany, now Israel... next, the world , (bwahahahaha!).

  • This move make well move progeny quite a bit forward in the linux market. But they have to be really carefull not to get burned.

    They have to make it very clear to their customers what exactly they are offering. Support? How much support and in what way? Will they offer security updates? Bugfixes? Updates? Helpdesk? On site consultants?

    Which of them does not really matter, just as long as they communicate clear and fair what their offer comprises. Otherwise they will get a bad rep, no matter their intentio

  • [Insert Subject Here] (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fo0bar ( 261207 ) * on Wednesday December 10, 2003 @05:48AM (#7678642)
    First of all, I would like to say that while I'm not a Red Hat zealot, I'm am a Red Hat sympathizer. I've been a Red Hat user since RHL 4.2, and will continue to use their products when possible. I'm not the happiest with what has happened in the recent months, but I see that this will overall be best for the company.

    I manage about 40 machines, most of which are currently running RHL 7.2 and 7.3. We are in the process of transitioning to a gentoo-based distro. A custom stage 3 tarball has been created that can be plopped onto a server and already contains the extra utilities needed as a base level for our servers (ntpd, screen, etc). I've frozen the portage tree, and are side-porting updated software that has been released as the result of a GLSA. This prevents the server set from being too "bleeding edge", while still being secure.

    That being said, it'll take a good deal of time to convert 40 servers over from RHL to gentoo. The Progency announcement is great for us, it gives us a bit of insurance against a flaw coming out that we can't immediately solve. Personally, I'd like nothing more than running RHEL on our servers. RHEL focuses more on stability than new whiz-bang features, and the 5-year support life is a plus. But RHEL costs money, money we can't really justify right now. And unfortunately, our business size (small to medium) is no longer the target customer size for Red Hat's business. They're going after the 1000ish-server and 10000ish-workstation market. Again, annoyed, but at least understandable.

    I see Red Hat's biggest mistake being announcing the Fedora project AFTER announcing the EOLs on RHL. If they would have announced Fedora and released Fedora Core 1, say 6 months before even announcing the EOL of RHL products, it would have eased the fears of many people. I have Fedora Core 1 running on a workstation, and it works pretty damn well IMHO. But I would not run it in a production environment yet because it's new and unproven and scary.

    Secondly, the argument about RHL 9 being out less than a year before being EOLed: Red Hat DID announce that they would only be supporting RHL 9 for a short time, but they probably should have said it louder than they did. Alternatively, if they would have gotten off the ground with the Fedora project earlier like I mentioned above, RHL 9 should have become Fedora Core 1, and would have played into the above strategy.

    So that's my take on this. Red Hat could have done things much differently to avoid annoying the smaller linux sysadmin, but that's all in the past now. Like it or not, Red Hat is moving in a new direction, and I wish them the best of luck. I just wish that my position didn't prevent me from moving along with them. Also, kudos to Progency for stepping up to the plate and providing transition support for these products.

    By the way, it's "Red Hat". Not "RedHat". Just because the two words in their company name are short doesn't allow you to merge them together. Pretty soon you'll have people going to Slash Dot to read about AlanCox speaking out against Micro Soft :)

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