On 10/26/06, Gabriel Gunderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As a CentOS user and a fan of Red Hat, I respectfully disagree.
I'm a CentoOS user too. Not that it matters, but I do use and love Red Hat's products... Err... CentOS's products.
Without Red Hat, CentOS is nothing. CentOS *helps* Red Hat by further BETA testing RH's "enterprise" offerings. The kinda of people that use CentOS don't make good customers; They either don't *need/want* support or can't *afford* it. If Red Hat were go tomorrow, CentOS would be right behind them.
That's true, but if CentOS was EvilCentOS Corporation and not some tiny non-profit, they wouldn't care as much if they were making money off the labors of Red Hat, ultimately causing financial problems for them and biting the hand that feeds them. Their stock holders wouldn't care that Red Hat goes under, and if they cause Red Hat's demise, that means one less (original) competitor for RHEL support contracts. It's a cold view of things, but I'm not talking about idealogy here, I'm talking about market realities.
It's kinda like the "piracy" of the Open Source world, in that, the Big Boys know it really doesn't hurt them. They allow it (and secretly like it) because it grooms the users into future customers when they eventually enter a position that requires them to use a supported version of the software. Don't get me wrong, stealing crumby proprietary software and re-branding an Open Source Linux distribution are *not* comparable - allowing them just achieves the same thing.
Right, but this is only true because CentOS is small and non-evil. But if they were big and evil, or if some big evil corp decided to rebrand RHEL and sell support contracts that would hurt Red Hat (oh wait, they did).
The GPL doesn't protect corporations, it protects the software, its creators and its users. There's *no* question that Red Hat understands this. They've no doubt evaluated this situation and many others that threaten their business model. As you've stated, "beat-you-at-your-own- game-with-your-own-product" has always been an issue and they've handled it well. It'll hurt, but it'll be O.K.
I think they've handled it extremely well too. I hope they keep up the good work and keep their stock prices and revenue up too.
BIG thanks to Red Hat for all you do. I wish you luck. When I'm not poor, and when I own a business that needs top-notch support, you'll get my money.
Diddo. -Bryan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
