“Earlier this year Red Hat split its range into two segments – effectively, business and everything else. It did this in the wrong order, as The Register remarked at the time, but subsequently the company has padded out its Enterprise range to consist of Advanced Server, Enterprise Server and Workstation, so here at least it has a complete set.” Read the article at The Register.
Red Hat, Linux, Consumers, Money – Do They Mix?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Who does the author think pays the bills? Companys, or <drastic mass generalization>danky smelling basement dwellers</drastic mass generalization>?
Don’t let those hippies corrupt your minds Red Hat!
I think the idea is really to use people like me who download the free version as their quality assurance department. Once they know what works and what doesn’t, they can build a nice production version and charge money for that. Seems like a pretty good idea to me.
I started playing with Linux back in the 1.2.13 kernel days and it is no surprise to me that RedHat is finally making the distinction between paying and non-paying customers. It only took a vendor twelve years to figure out that in order to get enterprise customers that you are going to have to provide enterprise support!
In regards to RedHat’s work with Oracle it seems they are trying to target Government customers with Advanced Server and Oracle 9i (based on RedHat’s certification to run Common Operating Environment applications and their attempt to get Common Criteria EAL2 for RedHat Advanced Server and Oracle 9i). Interesting choice of targets considering even if RedHat gets EAL2 it won’t be enough for most Government installations (where EAL4 is required). But you have to start somewhere.
I am also sure that some people (Linux zealots) will complain that RedHat has “sold out” and that they expect RedHat Enterprise products to cost nothing, good luck! If people expect Linux to last, Linux distros are going to have to cater to more sophisticated customers. RedHat is going in the right direction in setting standards, getting evaluated for security, and charging the customer for it.
Getting this type of certification in itself alone is enough reason to charge customers a decent price for enterprise versions. It alsois to the customer’s advantage, since they can then bid their Redhat systems in GSA and other contracts, which can yield a *lot* of revenue (i.e. a million $ is a chump change contract). Couple this with other efforts such as enterprise support, enterprise redundancy (and support thereof), specialized applications (we use Linux at work for VOD/Conditional Access systems – a ‘small’ system is considered to be 35000-100000 settopbox users) and you have a lot of costs that need to be recouped. Anyone who says this should be free is an idiot.
[i]Don’t let those hippies corrupt your minds Red Hat!</>
damn hippies..
There’s no significant difference between AS and their desktop product. And all the modifications that go into the AS kernel get sent back to Linus to get incorporated into the default product, if those modifications are worthy. See RedHat can put a nice shiny box on their “advanced” product but it isn’t a lot more than their standard desktop with some stability patches and maybe some extra commercial apps.
RedHat 9 is obviously not designed to be a stable server OS but there’s nothing that prevents you from using it in that manner. Most Linux admins would probably choose Slackware or Debian if they didn’t want to pay for AS. Either way no product is complete, they all are going to take a lot of work before they reach perfection.
Anyone who says this should be free is an idiot.
You’re an idiot. Everything should be free.
You are as tactful as you are intelligent.
I disagree. Stay tuned to this site to find out why.
The answer is “no”. Most “consumers” (read: home users) would rather <U>pirate</U> the latest greatest version of Windows XP than… *gasp*… paying (!) for whatever operating system!
If you read the article (and the first comment under it, on newsforge… that I wrote, by the way) you’ll see that here in Italy while the vast majority of users actually pirate EVERYTHING they have on their _windows_ pc, the linux crowd pays regularly for their distros.
We are still on 56k dialup for the 70% (maybe even more), so downloading is not an option for most. So people go out and buy cheap linux magazines (there are 4 or 5 of them) with the linux distros, software, or upgrades.
Incidentally 8 months ago RedHat started publishing their official RHMagazine here: every 2 months you get a nice magazine, interesting articles, and 2 or 3 CDs with the distro, upgrades or documentation.
Everything has the “official redhat” imprimatur, and for 7.5 EUR (that is circa 8,6 USD) you also get a slim cardboad box and sometimes a gadget like the “powered by redhat” sticker or the system recovery cdcard.
I personally think this is a good way to make money on linux!
If Redhat wants to make more money than they should concentrate on offering more attractive services to Linux users. Those services are not free.
I agree, this RH Magazine sounds like a great idea. I will probably buy it for the next version of RedHat if it comes out soon enough here in Germany (it’s already launched in Germany).
Also:
you’ll see that here in Italy while the vast majority of users actually pirate EVERYTHING they have on their _windows_ pc, the linux crowd pays regularly for their distros.
That’s absolutely true, not just in Italy.
Most people I know wouldn’t even think about paying for Windows software (mostly private users). Downloading warez or searching for serialz seems to be as common as downloading MP3 files. Nobody sees this as a crime and I always wonder what people are talking about when they claim that Windows users do actually pay for their stuff… The only reason why most Windows users don’t care about prices and such is, that they know it dosen’t matter for them thanks to eDonkey and astalavista.
Photoshop for example, almost every creative Windows user seems to use this. But do I know a single person who actually payed for this? Nope, absolutely noone.
This situation is so incredibly FUBAR. If you don’t pirate software as a Windows user and can’t pay for it, you are just as much an outsider as a Linux user.
I’ve said this for years, and if it weren’t for the large corporations that are kept in line by the BSA, piracy would be a heck of alot higher and companies would be struggling.
It is funny when I hear win fan-boys talk about a Linux distro going belly up because they offer their product free, yet, on the other hand they think it is perfectly acceptable to pirate music and software!
I agree, and over several issues they may talk about a number of topics, ranging from newbies right to the person who wants to start hacking at the kernel. As for the distro itself, I’m more than happy pauing $60 for Redhat network. I have NEVER had a problem with subscription software, it is just when Microsoft expects people to pay AUS$400 for 12months subscription to Office XP is where I have issues. $60 is alright, but $400! go fly a kite!
“If you read the article (and the first comment under it, on newsforge… that I wrote, by the way) you’ll see that here in Italy while the vast majority of users actually pirate EVERYTHING they have on their _windows_ pc, the linux crowd pays regularly for their distros.”
This claim directly contradicts the claims from another OSNews article.
“That’s exactly my point. The resources AREN’T there, because too many Linux users refuse to pay for software. If users would pay for software, companies might be attracted more to the platform, and we’d end up with better software! I don’t see how that’s disingenuous.” – http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3618“>Adam
You obviuosly have never been in Italy. I do tech support in an hospital, and when people whine because they don’t have (for example) Access, I simply reply “you don’t have It because the management didn’t buy it”. They stare at me as if I was mad. Most non-tech people don’t even KNOW that you are supposed to pay for software.
Yes, so-called piracy is THIS common.
Just like the german fellow noticed EVERYBODY on windows seems to have Photoshop. I don’t know ANYBODY with a legit copy, though.
When you bu a PC it doesn’t come with Office? You ask around at work or with friends, and find someone that simply sais “I’ll copy it to you, no problem!”. Same thing with everything else.
If the person is more tech savvy simply fires up WinMX and downloads a cracked versions of the software. The only persons that don’t use pirated software in Italy are linux geeks, trust me.
Just a guess, but I think 90-95% of BUSINESS users use at least a couple of warez softs.
Ah, did you know that after the 30 days of trial WinZip is as illegal as a warez copy of office? I know literally dozens of people that think clicking “I agree” every time is normal. And that don’t even know that for example PowerArchiver 2001 does MORE and with no strings attached.
Ah, the joys of Win32 software!
At home I’ve used Linux only for years now, and I really feel better knowing that I use NO illegal software.
Ciao, Renato
I have always wondered why for a leading edge distro such as RedHat they didn’t publish a magazine here in the USA. As someone above pointed out, it could cover a whole range of topics aimed at the newbie to the sysadmin, specifically tailored for RedHat users. The problem with many of the generic Linux magazines is their content can’t aim a lot of the how to type articles in a way to cover all the differences in the different distros.
Another thing I think RedHat could do is have a RedHat Magazine and a RedHat Magazine/RedHat Network Subscription combo. That is, one of the perks for getting a RedHat Network subscription would be getting the magazine.
If I write music and you write software and we trade this stuff over the net for free, doesn’t everybody win? If I make a loaf of bread and you churn some butter wouldn’t it them be logical to share?
Well, we all get our loaves and bread and butter and software and music. So is it so difficult to do the same things we do today just without money? It certainly would save us a bunch of time and I bet we’d have better luck meeting our deadlines. And most of us wouldn’t even need to have deadlines anymore because most of those get set by sales/marketting, all to make a profit, etc.
See money isn’t really all that important. The problem is going to be when OSS software gets so good that nobody has any incentive to buy commercial software anymore. The same thing with OSS music and movies. Then where will all of us creative professional be when we are still forced to pay money for food? Starving. And that’s sad.
But hey, I don’t care, I work for money and code for the love of it. And I never mix the two. In other words you can’t pay me to write software for you.
Here in Brazil the situation is similar to Italy. Nobody cares with piracy except big companies, whose are becoming afraid with ABES (the brazilian versin of BSA). See the websites:
http://www.regularize.com.br/
http://www.abes.org.br/
http://www.bsa.org/latinamerica-portuguese/
Here, the penalty for a single pirated copy of a software is 3000 times their price !! It breaks any company with 20 PCs (with M$ Office, M$ Winblows, Photoshop, Corel Draw, Winzip, etc as usual…).
We have many problems with education and “Joe users” like in any part of the world but Linux is spreading like fire here between technical people. We have some national linux distributions (Conectiva and others) and there are many oficial projects to use linux in government.
I think that desktop linux is a viable alternative when there are a meticulous planning and preparation. An administrator can set wit care an easy desktop for Joe users. See, for example, linux used on a brazilian school:
http://www.direito.varginha.com.br/lxp/
(in portuguese but with nice screenshots)
The only problem with linux is lack of some professional programs like CADs, desktop publishing, etc. I think that Linux have much more market than Apple’s Mac OS X, which has an insignificant market share outside USA.
Linux is good for everybody except M$. A software house, for example, can make a software and give linux as operation system to sell a complete solution. A game company can make linux bootable CDROMs with your game inside and sell the whole set.