Dave Ihnat wrote:
>
> Gentlefolk,
>
> I'm sure this will get flogged to death, but it's relevant to our interests.
> This is from
>
> eWEEK News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> August 26, 2002 // Volume 2, Issue 125
>
> =========================================================
> News and Views
> =========================================================
> Red Hat: Next Redmond?
>
> There is growing concern in the Linux community that
> industry-leader Red Hat will become the 'Microsoft of the
> Linux world.'
>
> http://eletters1.ziffdavis.com/cgi-bin10/flo?y=eRgv0Dw35u0DUm0p3M0Ae
The concerns, amoungst people who have clearly seen the damage inflicted
on the world of computer users by Microsoft, aren't unreasonable. I
think they are quite unlikely. The other companies listed (Caldera,
SuSE, TurboLinux, etc) have had business model problems for quite some
time, and that more than any activity on the part of Red Hat has led
them towards loosing their US market. Caldera started out with a rather
nice distribution, and then continued on with some of the most inept,
offensive marketing and business practices I've seen in years. When
they went from the OpenLinux product line to their current one, the
first step they made was to insult and offend their current user base,
and then belittle them when they objected. They never had much of a
contrib network, or even very good passive support for their user
community. They _DID_ have some very good people - another case of a
company doing so little with so much.
Note also that Caldera, SuSE, and others, while making and encouraging
noises that Red Hat wants to make a proprietary version of Linux, are
the ones who have regularly included proprietary, licensed code (such as
installers) and external products under proprietary licensesd into the
distro; leading to a mishmash of a distribution that cannot be simply
copied and given away. Red Hat, on the other hand, has shown a
consistent trend of moving away from any limited license products where
possible (Netscape/Mozilla/Galeon comes to mind) and any limited
license products have generally been on a secondary, optional disk.
Note how many distro's out there have been repackaged Red Hat?
Including Linux Mandrake, at least at it's beginnings? I'll get worried
when I see mandatory components, such as the installer, becoming closed
license code.
rickf
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If you are successfull they'll beat a path to your doorstep ...
Picket signs firmly in hand!
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