Red Hat's business plan is quite simple . .

Post #75,075 by Andrew Grygus 1/17/03 7:16:20 AM Reply	Red Hat's business plan is quite simple . . . . and available only to them (due to their "Irrational Exuberance" IPO, where they traded heaps and stacks of near worthless stock for a huge pile of cash. Stated simply, "Make free ISO downloads the standard so no other distro dares not offer them for fear of 'community outrage'". This strategy deprives other commercial distros of most of their potential income, and will bankrupt all of them. Once the competition is gone, Red Hat will cease offering free ISOs "to maximize shareholder value". Note that Red Hat already offers no free ISOs for Advanced Server and other premium products. SCO/Caldera also offers ISOs for low end products but not for the premium United Linux product, exactly like Red Hat, but they are subjected to continuous "community outrage" over the "missing" UL ISOs, because they are "Not Red Hat", the greatest sin known to the "Community". Note that in Linux group discussions on the Mandrake filing, at least half the posts are by Red Hat partisans saying "Good riddance", "it's about time", claiming "managment corruption","money wasted on fancy cars and luxury", etc. etc. etc.. Mandrake too has committed the sin of not being Red Hat. Most quote the falacy that Mandrake is just Red Hat with dressing. Mandrake hasn't been based on Red Hat since version 6.0. They do still use RPM for package management, but that's required by Linux Standard Base. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #75,156 by rickmoen 1/17/03 1:40:57 PM Reply	Re: Red Hat's business plan is quite simple . . Andrew Grygus wrote: Stated simply, "Make free ISO downloads the standard so no other distro dares not offer them for fear of 'community outrage'". 1. Unhistorical. Distributions with zero gratis ISO downloads have existed at least since the first Caldera Network Desktop release, circa 1994. And are still prominent today, and will keep on being so. Seen any gratis ISOs of Xandros Desktop OS? Lindows OS? 2. The phrase "community outrage" translates to "eminently ignorable flamage from the clueless", since nobody's ever been under the obligation to provide such downloads, and anyone with common sense has known that all along. Note that Red Hat already offers no free ISOs for Advanced Server and other premium products. Note that it would be illegal for such ISOs to exist, since RHAS and the aforementioned other premium products contain non-redistributable proprietary applications. SCO/Caldera also offers ISOs for low end products but not for the premium United Linux product... To my knowledge, there are no components of UnitedLinux that aren't publicly distributable -- though that might have changed since the beta cycle -- but neither that consortium nor none of its four backers is obliged to underwrite the bandwidth for downloads. 1.0 beta 3 is [link\|http://public.www.planetmirror.com/pub/unitedlinux/\|here]. You're also free to grab the ftp tree of the latest SuSE Linux and construct your own ISOs from that, I guess. I can say from experience with the betas that UnitedLinux is pretty much exactly the same as SuSE Linux. ...exactly like Red Hat, but they are subjected to continuous "community outrage" over the "missing" UL ISOs, because they are "Not Red Hat", the greatest sin known to the "Community". Beating them up over not paying gobs of money to fund other people's downloads of free-of-charge chotchkes simply doesn't make sense. But, speaking for myself, I've been pretty unimpressed by their non-response to polite questions over what specific property their per-seat licence concerns. See: [link\|http://lists.svlug.org/archives/smaug/2001q3/000122.html\|here] and (immediately following that) [link\|http://lists.svlug.org/archives/smaug/2001q3/000126.html\|here]. Note that in Linux group discussions on the Mandrake filing, at least half the posts are by Red Hat partisans saying "Good riddance", "it's about time", claiming "managment corruption","money wasted on fancy cars and luxury", etc. etc. etc.. Mandrake too has committed the sin of not being Red Hat. Sounds to me like the more content-free sort of Slashdot discussion, or comp.os..advocacy. (Remember what Gene Spafford said about Usenet discussions.) They do still use RPM for package management, but that's required by Linux Standard Base.* It is not required by the Linux Standard Base. The Linux Standard Base requires that one be able to handle RPMs, which is a different proposition entirely. Thus, for example, the Debian package "lsb" installs the necessary system plumbing to handle that functionality, though Debian per se is not RPM-oriented. Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
Post #75,174 by Andrew Grygus 1/17/03 2:47:45 PM Reply	Thanks for clarifying the RPM thing. SCO has been inarticulate, incoherent and incompetent in their public statements ever since that first famous anti-Linux memo they had to withdraw. A few years ago, I participated in an SCO on-line dealer conference to explain SCO's position on Linux. Not only was it totally incoherent, the visuals were available only to those participating using Microsoft Internet Explorer and Office - talk about brain dead! Caldera has been little better much of the time, and has a history of expressing things in exactly the wrong words. Red Hat's Robert Young could say "per seat licensing" phrased to be acceptable to the enthusiasts, and Caldera's Ransom Young could say "free ISOs" phrased to enrage the Linux crowd. The combined company now leans more to SCO incoherence. They desperately need to establish clearly to the buying public what value comes with their rather pricy United Linux distribution, but to date they have not done so. SCO needs to hire some very skilled communications people, but technical people generally don't see the value in that, so I'm not expecting a whole lot of improvement. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]

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