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Red Hat Software Businesses

CNN interview with RedHat 40

Posted by Hemos from the more-press-coverage dept.
munchkin writes "CNN interviews Bob Young as he explains how Red Hat will revolutionize the software market. Read all about it here " Same story as usual in many ways-but at least the mainstream press has a growing fascination with the Open Source model and how it works; especially the notion of it being impossible for one company do destory the rest.
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CNN interview with RedHat More

CNN interview with RedHat

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  • SGI, a maker of high-end workstations for engineering and graphics, recently released the code for a sophisticated graphics program, much to the joy of the Linux community that has long wanted such software.

    What graphics software is this? I knew they'd just announced that they'll release XFS, but I wouldn't class that as 'graphics software'.

  • It is true though - it is all to easy to focus our attention on the superstars and ignore the cast of thousands who submit less visible contributions (such as bugfixes and documentation).

    More exposure == more eyeballs == better software.
  • Redhat is *free*. If you don't like the price that they charge for the nice boxed set (including support), then don't buy it.

    Download it, borrow it of a friend, get a $2 copy from cheapbytes, whatever. Just don't whine about it like they are ripping you off, they aren't.
  • Yes, RedHat will revolutionize the software industry by snuffing out the competition. Sound familiar?
    As far as my experiences with RH go, I am constantly kicking myself for ever being talked into going RH, when another (once) popular distro was more than adequate. I've had RH4.1, 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2. Shows you how much a sucker I've been, eh?
    Never a flawless install. I've gotten lazy, turned into the Microsoft-type drone and accepted it as normal. As for support for the dozens of mishaps I've had (RH shipping bug-laden software/rare hardware failures/etc) I've not ONCE gotten a reply from RedHat. Seven letters out, zero letters in. And I paid the extra bucks for this thing they call support?
    Again, it sounds all too familiar.
  • Although there are many other versions of Linux, Red Hat Linux is emerging as a standard for Linux users in this country because of the company's reputation for quality.

    Red Hat does useful things for the community, and their distribution is OK, but I disagree with this statement. The primary reasons for Red Hat's success in my opinion are lots of advertisement, and catering to the MS-converts.

  • I assume this refers to one of the other pieces of free-ish software SGI has released, GLX [sgi.com]; I haven't studied its license.

    SGI also released OpenVault [sgi.com] but its license has some problems (Notification Clause, Advertising Clause, US Legislation Imperialism) which have been discussed on license-discuss and debian-legal.

  • I am getting really sick and tired of people complaing about the cost of RedHat. The cost is a reflection of the Support that comes with the product. If you have already purchased a previous version you should not really need the support so don't pay for it.

    Remember RedHat is giving their product away for free -- they have to it is required by the GPL. Would any other "corporation" do that with their product.

    If you don't have the bandwidth to dowload it then just order it from some company like CheapBytes. I believe I paid $1.98 for my copy of RedHat 6.0 (although in Canadian $ that became quite expensive ;).
  • That'd be Steven Tweedie.

  • Oh, c'mon.

    It's just resentment among /.ers. While we're important, we're hardly the be-all and end-all of the Linux community.

    (didn't Rasterman say it was basically ONE person that forced his hand?)

    The other thing that's important to note is that the article is coming from a reporter who doesn't have much experience with Freed Software. It's the Linux == RedHat thing again. ( I'm not judging here. I think what's needed to correct this one is education, not ranting. )

    Resentment of RH on /. != the world stops working on Linux

    --

  • Quote from the article:

    "
    ...But its [Linux's] software still requires a great deal more technical knowledge than does Windows NT..."
    That's a crock. To properly set up NT in a networked environment requires just as much, if not more expertise and work than it does to set up a Linux box in the same environment. IMNSHO of course.

    I also wonder how seriously the mainstream press takes the "World Domination" thing. Probably with too much of a straight face :-)

  • "For his part, Young insists the hundreds of new programmers that join the Linux community because of Red Hat's corporate ties will make far more important contributions than the few hackers who may quit in anger."

    Didn't we just have this topic covered? ;-)

  • "What makes Linux so attractive is that it's ``open source,'' which means the underlying code is publicly available. Anybody can use it and make changes in the software, provided they make those changes available to the rest of the community.

    Well, their heart was in the right place.

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan


  • i don't know the exact adress but there is a paper on www.fsf.org that says that their product are generally expensive because this is a way to support them. If you want to help the fsf to do more software you can buy they products or just give them a check with less money if this is too expensive.

    BTW: Free Software, Free has nothing to do with price, but everything to do with liberty. any company can charge 1Million for any free software if they want, but this won't be very competitive. The FSF do that because they are not a for profit company and they don't need to be competitive, so if you buy one of these very expensives CD from the FSF you are sure that it will be used for coding new softwares (no money in marketing).

  • They did write RPM, they are paying people to write for Gnome.

    Ok they are using a lot of code they didn't write but this is the essence of Free sotware. You're not big enough to resolve all the problem in the world so you solve some of them and give the solution away so people can improve your solution and/or solve other problem...but people need to eat, so you sell some software you didn't wrote.

    Redhat is licensing all is code under GPL so don't accuse them to take advantage of the community. They take advantage and they give something back, that's the fundation of every community only this is source code and hiring of hacker instead of money.
  • From article:

    Of the 10 key programmers working on the Linux kernel, the core part of the software, four work for Red Hat as contractors, including one in Hungary and one in Scotland.

    Are they thinking of Alan Cox? And if so, I might be greatly mistaken, but doesn't he live in Wales?

    --

  • You're paying for 30 days of TELEPHONE support, which didn't exist before.

    Get RedHat 6.0 Core if you don't need the support. It's $40. (Probably can get for less in some retail stores.)
  • Man, I didn't expect so many people to make my post look like a Troll. All I was asking was, why is it necessary for them to charge $30 more for their newest distribution AT THE COUNTER OF A COMPUTER STORE than Redhat 5.2 cost? Don't you think that in alot of stores (such as Best Buy or CompUSA), where Redhat and Windoze 98 upgrade sit side by side, that Redhat would look more attractive if it were cheaper? I'm not saying it should be $10 because most consumers think 'if it's cheap it's gotta suck'. But why not keep their original price and cut the price on their old distro? Weird marketing if you ask me.
    But then again, last time I checked, full color box graphics cost a little bit more.

  • I don't object to Redhat making some money, but the price for Redhat 6 is really hard to believe. It's anywhere from $65-$80 everywhere I look (in stores). I remember the first time I bought Redhat 5.2, it was a MacMillan Publications release and only cost $3o. When will we see other Redhat 6 distros appearing for less cash in local software outlets?
    And whatever happened to Redhat's 'discount' package, that comes with only the bare bones Redhat6 disc and an installation guide?

  • I am unhappy with the way Red Hat software is received by some people in the Linux community. Prior to using RH, I was a devoted Slackware user. I switched to RH to see what all the hype was about. I'll admit, I have only been privy to 5.1, 5.2, and 6.0. But I can honestly say that I have been very happy with the switch. I have never experienced any major bug or installation errors as some claim. Of the small bugs that I have run into, they were easily fixed. This is not to say that others have not had major problems. But in general, I think RH gets an unfair rap from many people. If I were to complain about RH, I might mention the price hike in the most recent version. However, since I can download 6.0 from just about any good ftp site, or purchase a copy from cheapbytes.com for $1.99(US), I don't see why this price hike is such a big deal. I could alo complain about how some RPM packages are setup in a non-standard way. However, I am not forced to use RPM packages as I can compile and install on my own with little or no trouble. In fact, many of the problems I have run into while using RH were due to my own mistake and not theirs. Granted, the latest versions are not without their bugs, but this is easily fixed and RH usually jumps on this pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to start some religious debate about which distro is the best. Nor is RH the be all, end all of distros. I just think that because of its high profile and media attention, RH is getting an unfair rap for what is otherwise a decent distro for both developers and regular users.

    Mark

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