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View Full Version : Is Redhat the Microsoft of opensource?



wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:22 PM
I used red hat years ago and since strayed to what I found better Flavors or Distro's

While later in life I noticed the business world and people that want linux admin's and engineers are interested in Redhat most spesificly

When I go to visit Redhat everything seems real fee based even for the desktop versions

They just seem more like Microsoft to me.

Vince4Amy
March 5th, 2009, 11:25 PM
Red Hat are a business and one of the top contributors to OpenSource projects. They have to make money but I fully support Red Hat and Novell.

Really if you're not going to like Red Hat or Novell etc because you don't like their business model I don't think that Linux is the right choice for you.

Arkenzor
March 5th, 2009, 11:26 PM
I think I'm feeling a (not so) subtle attempt to abuse the Microsoft=bad connotation here.

At any rate, Red Hat's target audience is entreprises, and managers seem to like buying concrete things with concrete money. You have to talk to your clients in their own language, right?

Maheriano
March 5th, 2009, 11:27 PM
Wasn't it Red Hat which gave Torvalds $20,000,000 in stock options as a thank you? Doesn't seem very Microsoft like to me.

wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:29 PM
Red Hat are a business and one of the top contributors to OpenSource projects. They have to make money but I fully support Red Hat and Novell.

Really if you're not going to like Red Hat or Novell etc because you don't like their business model I don't think that Linux is the right choice for you.


Ok then what is???

dspari1
March 5th, 2009, 11:30 PM
Redhat also lets you download Fedora for free which is really a bleeding edge version of RHEL.

koenn
March 5th, 2009, 11:35 PM
Redhat also lets you download Fedora for free which is a test-version of RHEL.
fixed that for you.

dspari1
March 5th, 2009, 11:36 PM
fixed that for you.

Pretty much. :)

Fedora isn't bad though.

Grant A.
March 5th, 2009, 11:36 PM
Wasn't it Red Hat which gave Torvalds $20,000,000 in stock options as a thank you? Doesn't seem very Microsoft like to me.

Redhat and VALinux (SourceForge, Inc. now) are the ones who gave him all of that stock. It was mainly out of gratitude for being the true original source for their products.

Vince4Amy
March 5th, 2009, 11:37 PM
Fedora isn't bad though.

Fedora is really good these days. 10 is brilliant.

dspari1
March 5th, 2009, 11:38 PM
Fedora is really good these days. 10 is brilliant.

I've been on the fence about switching. I tried the live cd, and it's pretty cool. I like the fact that it uses SELinux by default.

koenn
March 5th, 2009, 11:39 PM
When I go to visit Redhat everything seems real fee based even for the desktop versions
They just seem more like Microsoft to me.
Hmmm ... what makes you think that RedHat has an obligation to give you an operating system, application software, and associated tech support, updates and maintenance for free ?

wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:42 PM
Red Hat are a business and one of the top contributors to OpenSource projects. They have to make money but I fully support Red Hat and Novell.

Really if you're not going to like Red Hat or Novell etc because you don't like their business model I don't think that Linux is the right choice for you.

Seriously I don't understand your comment How is Linux not right for Me???

wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:44 PM
Hmmm ... what makes you think that RedHat has an obligation to give you an operating software, application software, and associated tech support, updates and maintenance for free ?

Never said they did but I got ubuntu for free..

I bought Redhat years ago

Ran it for a while till moving on

over to the the depian distro's

Vince4Amy
March 5th, 2009, 11:45 PM
Seriously I don't understand your comment How is Linux not right for Me???

I'm not if you're fine with the likes of Red Hat and Novell. But if you were to turn into one of these people which refuse to use anything from these companies then you really shouldn't be running Linux as you would be slamming two of the biggest supporters to the system you are using.

Ubuntu includes many, many applications which have Novell and Red Hat code in them and people need to realise this. The fact you are using the Linux Kernel means that you are using software which they contributed a lot to.

wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:47 PM
my point is If I can get Ubuntu or Free BSD and do everything that RH can why would I buy it unless i was a business buying a support contract

why would I pay for the desktop version when there are a million free distro's that I think are better

I was just wanting to try the latest version to see how they have came along over the years

kidux
March 5th, 2009, 11:47 PM
Seriously I don't understand your comment How is Linux not right for Me???
I think his comment is about the fact that you appear to not understand the concept of FOSS. Rather than free as in speech, you are equating it with free as in beer. Just because it's free doesn't mean it doesn't cost. MS could call Windows FOSS and still charge for it as long as you had the RIGHT to change it and ACCESS to the source code to change it with.

Giant Speck
March 5th, 2009, 11:49 PM
Seriously I don't understand your comment How is Linux not right for Me???

He's saying that if you are going to boycott Red Hat and Novell because you don't like their business models, then using Linux would be somewhat hypocritical because even if you are not using a Red Hat or Novell distribution, you are still using code from both of those companies. Red Hat and Novell are the two largest contributors to the code of the Linux kernel and to products such as KDE and GNOME. So you really can't use Linux without running into code made by either of those two companies.

wsonar
March 5th, 2009, 11:50 PM
I think his comment is about the fact that you appear to not understand the concept of FOSS. Rather than free as in speech, you are equating it with free as in beer. Just because it's free doesn't mean it doesn't cost. MS could call Windows FOSS and still charge for it as long as you had the RIGHT to change it and ACCESS to the source code to change it with.

I know the definition of opensource

Thanks

koenn
March 5th, 2009, 11:58 PM
Never said they did but I got ubuntu for free..

I bought Redhat years ago

Ran it for a while till moving on

over to the the depian distro's
You complain that "Redhat is all about fees" but you don't expect them to give away their stuff for free.

OK.

kidux
March 5th, 2009, 11:59 PM
I know the definition of opensource

Thanks
If that's so, then I fail to see what your confusion is. Red Hat has provided so much to the FOSS movement, I cannot see how they can be compared to MS. Not only that, but when you buy RHEL, the majority of the costs is for the support you receive from them, and considering it's an enterprise level OS, that's a significant amount of support. You don't expect your local Geek Squad to support and repair your computer for free, so why should Red Hat?

dspari1
March 6th, 2009, 12:00 AM
Redhat offers Fedora as their free alternative, so I don't get what the problem is exactly.

gnomeuser
March 6th, 2009, 12:05 AM
fixed that for you.

As a community Fedora developer I resent that. Fedora is a technology engine. Being such everyone benefits from the work we do, espeically since we do all our work upstream. We are however not Red Hat's lapdogs, the majority of all Fedora developers are not affiliated with Red Hat in any way.

Now are Red Hat the Microsoft of the Linux world? I doubt it. They fund Free Software to a greater extent than any other company currently. They understand Free Software and play an important part in that ecosystem. Do they always do the right thing? No, absolutely not, personally I find that their stance on Mono e.g. is heavily colored by their investments in Java. That being said they are good guys, they make their money in an honest way and they give back a lot of important work.

wsonar
March 6th, 2009, 12:07 AM
If that's so, then I fail to see what your confusion is. Red Hat has provided so much to the FOSS movement, I cannot see how they can be compared to MS. Not only that, but when you buy RHEL, the majority of the costs is for the support you receive from them, and considering it's an enterprise level OS, that's a significant amount of support. You don't expect your local Geek Squad to support and repair your computer for free, so why should Red Hat?

I didn't want free support

I never realized Fedora was there desktop version



I'll probably still stick with Depian distro's I have no need to switch

I just felt like they where a big conglomerate corporation

sorry to **** off the RH community

Vince4Amy
March 6th, 2009, 12:10 AM
sorry to **** off the RH community

Just be sure to research in future before posting.

kidux
March 6th, 2009, 12:14 AM
I didn't want free support

I never realized Fedora was there desktop version



I'll probably still stick with Depian distro's I have no need to switch

I just felt like they where a big conglomerate corporation

sorry to **** off the RH community
No worries, mate. As Vince said, do a little research, and perhaps cut back on the accusatory tone. Otherwise, no harm no foul. People here are just as anal about MS bashing because it gets us no where and makes us look like rabid fanboys. ;)

wsonar
March 6th, 2009, 12:37 AM
I don't think research would have changed my opinion much




oh well



eventually the thread will die

kidux
March 6th, 2009, 12:39 AM
I don't think research would have changed my opinion much




oh well



eventually the thread will die
If you had known the amount Red Hat spends on the FOSS community and that Fedora was the desktop version, as well as the amount of support given to customers, you don't believe you would have thought differently about the comparison between RH and MS? Why, if I may ask?

koenn
March 6th, 2009, 12:49 AM
As a community Fedora developer I resent that. Fedora is a technology engine. Being such everyone benefits from the work we do, espeically since we do all our work upstream. We are however not Red Hat's lapdogs, the majority of all Fedora developers are not affiliated with Red Hat in any way.
sorry 'bout that, no offense intended.
I didn't mean 'test version' to indicate some sort of inferior version. AFAIK, Fedora serves as a development release /test release to Redhat, in that new development in Fedora, and the distribution as a whole returns real life experience (such as bug reports and other feedback) that RHEL can use in preparation of it's own releases.
Compare Debian unstable & testing vs stable, or Ubuntu's regular releases vs LTS releases.

wsonar
March 6th, 2009, 12:50 AM
I don't know there just like an old girlfriend you see and wonder what she's up to, but don't really want to date anymore

I was never big into Novel but it's probably because i used RH several yrs ago then worked for Microsoft so I became simulated again

now back in the Linux world love the ubuntu community and just haven't felt the love anywhere else

I've heard about novel's contributions before and I know RH was one of the first mainstream distro's or at least it was for me tho I would probably still
prefer slackware over RH

maybe I wasn't as familure when I used RH so I became biased i guess and when you form an opinion it's hard to change it

wsonar
March 6th, 2009, 12:54 AM
any I guess corporation ask for RH certs these day's and that's what makes me think of them as the big corp version

I was wanting to get some linux certs i was leaning towards the LPI but most jobs ask for RH cert

so I guess it seemed like they where big on selling there certs

kidux
March 6th, 2009, 12:54 AM
I don't know there just like an old girlfriend you see and wonder what she's up to, but don't really want to date anymore

I was never big into Novel but it's probably because i used RH several yrs ago then worked for Microsoft so I became simulated again

now back in the Linux world love the ubuntu community and just haven't felt the love anywhere else

I've heard about novel's contributions before and I know RH was one of the first mainstream distro's or at least it was for me tho I would probably still
prefer slackware over RH

maybe I wasn't as familure when I used RH so I became biased i guess and when you form an opinion it's hard to change it
I understand about opinions, lol. I prefer to try and keep an open mind about everything though. I started with RH back in the day, then FC before jumping over to Slackware. I would still be running Slackware if it weren't for KDE being the standard desktop for it, and the lack of a real package manager. I may end up going over to Arch soon, just because of the level of control compared to Ubuntu.

kidux
March 6th, 2009, 12:57 AM
any I guess corporation ask for RH certs these day's and that's what makes me think of them as the big corp version

I was wanting to get some linux certs i was leaning towards the LPI but most jobs ask for RH cert

so I guess it seemed like they where big on selling there certs
The problem with certs is that they don't really show what you know or are capable of. They are good to get in the door, but experience is what really matters, at least to an intelligent company. Still, I wouldn't bypass all the certs as they can be the difference between an entry level and management position.

LPI is good, as is Linux+, for a base start. RHCE is the big daddy, and in that context is equivalent to MCSE.

wsonar
March 6th, 2009, 01:21 AM
The problem with certs is that they don't really show what you know or are capable of. They are good to get in the door, but experience is what really matters, at least to an intelligent company. Still, I wouldn't bypass all the certs as they can be the difference between an entry level and management position.

LPI is good, as is Linux+, for a base start. RHCE is the big daddy, and in that context is equivalent to MCSE.

This helps thanks

dragos240
March 6th, 2009, 01:26 AM
Fedora is really good these days. 10 is brilliant.

What are the improvements since 9? I tried 9 and didn't like it.

Sporkman
March 6th, 2009, 03:11 AM
...and managers seem to like buying concrete things with concrete money.

Yes - it gives them a solid assurance of support (someone to call, who has an obligation to help you solve your problem).

gnomeuser
March 6th, 2009, 10:12 AM
What are the improvements since 9? I tried 9 and didn't like it.

We will be the first to admit F9 wasn't the best release we ever put out. We do update it through out it's lifetime so issues do go away and software is kept up to date.

F10 contains so much new stuff it's hard to give you a summary, you can look at the feature list (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList). There is a lot of work across the board, new features for the desktop, server and special deployments. It's a very nice release.

You might also want to check out the upcoming F11 release, the Beta is coming out later this month, there will be a Live CD release so you can check it out without endangering your existing setup. There is a lot of exciting work going on (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11/FeatureList).

cb951303
March 6th, 2009, 10:49 AM
fedora works hard to create new open source technologies, I doubt red hat is the MS of open source world.

Vince4Amy
March 6th, 2009, 11:32 AM
I doubt red hat is the MS of open source world.

It's not and neither is Novell.