Decline in Red Hat/Fedora

[TheMTtakeover]

I was watching the why Linux sucks seminar and in the seminar they said that there was a steady decline in the number of users that use Red Hat/Fedora. Anybody have any ideas why this is?

[BigSilly]

Is it even true?

[Lars Noodén]

Before even discussing this, it would be best to see valid and authoritative sources.

[ikt]

Anybody have any ideas why this is?

Ubuntu.

[wojox]

Red Hat, the first billion dollar Linux company. I doubt it's declining.

Maybe the "why Linux sucks seminar" got their sources from Distrowatch. :p

[Morbius1]

I don't know about Fedora specifically but I would not include RedHat in your assertion.

If the average user has even heard about Linux he has come to equate it with Ubuntu.

But if you are the average corporate CIO / CTO, when you hear the word Linux you think RedHat - despite the claim from Ubuntu's marketing department that 107.62% of the worlds servers run Ubuntu ;)

[TheMTtakeover]

Red Hat, the first billion dollar Linux company. I doubt it's declining.

Maybe the "why Linux sucks seminar" got their sources from Distrowatch. :p

Ahhhhh! You are correct. I can't believe I missed that when watching through.

[KiwiNZ]

I was watching the why Linux sucks seminar and in the seminar they said that there was a steady decline in the number of users that use Red Hat/Fedora. Anybody have any ideas why this is?

They tried new features and designs, people hate that

[vexorian]

Does not sound like the most reliable source ever.

[neu5eeCh]

They tried new features and designs, people hate that

But there will also be people who righteously flock to whatever is a new feature or design regardless of whether the bling is an improvement or even functionally useful, so I'm not sure you can blame it on that. Besides, as far as I know, Red Hat has not transitioned to GS3.

Personally, I peg it on Fedora's stubborn refusal to be anything more than Red Hat's beta. Distros like Ubuntu, PCLOS and SUSE are offering users polished products. Fedora has never marketed itself (deliberately) as a generalist, user-friendly distro and I suspect people are seeing less and less reason to install it. Why bother? Users are going to get all excited because of some arcane boot process? Fedora is getting left behind, but then they might be okay with that. Popularity never seems to have been their goal. I personally know one individual who will never, ever go back to Linux because their spouse insisted on using Fedora. Her experience with Fedora was miserable.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

They must be referring to RedHat for general home users. RedHat Enterprise Linux is what most large corporations think of when you say Linux. Those are RedHat's primary customers, and where they make their profit.

[Mikeb85]

If it's true (which I doubt), it would be because of Ubuntu and other competition (SUSE). But RedHat is the biggest and most well known Linux in the enterprise, so I doubt they'd be losing customers.

[HermanAB]

Redhat is without doubt the 800 lb gorilla of the Linux world, but neither Redhat nor Fedora are are aimed at common users - these are business and developer products.

The common user is served better by Ubuntu, PCLOS and Mageia.